The Original Bean

Friday Fragments

2012-01-27T00:01:00.000-05:00

It's been a while! I'm ready to celebrate Friday, old-school :)

Friday Fragments is brought to you by Mrs4444!

I am WHIPPED. Work has been a total blur the last few weeks, and I'm ready for the grant proposals to be out and the workload to drop back down to a manageable pace. I have grand plans for February, including working on a new definition of Food Deserts and creating a Food Access and Nutrition data portal on our website. I'm hoping to spin that into a dissertation topic. I'm sure I'll talk about that more than you care to hear!

I forgot how time-consuming school is, and all of the little piles of suck that go along with graduate-level education. That's a post for a different day :)

I'm officially back in marathon-training mode. Had a bit of a stop and start with the DC Marathon, which I've decided not to do, so I took 2 weeks off to let some shin splints heal and I have 12 miles on the calendar for tomorrow.

Jorge Posada retired this week. I know most of you don't give a rat's about Yankee baseball, but I'm really going to miss the Jeter-Posada-Mo trio.

Charlie got a haircut this weekend. I thought it made him look a lot older. Yesterday, when I went to pick him up from school, he had just started painting a watercolor picture. I sat down with him so that he could finish up. He did a really great job rinsing the brush between colors and not digging around in the paint tray. When he was done with his masterpiece, he cleaned up the tray, sponged off the table, emptied the dirty water, refilled the bowl with fresh water for the next kid, and hung up his smock. He's certainly not a baby anymore (sob!).

You're never too old for mom to drop off surprise cupcakes!

Enjoy your weekend! I hope to be relaxing on the couch with a vodka/cranberry and a cupcake later on tonight.

This Stuff is Hard, Yo!

2012-01-23T03:41:00.003-05:00

As an historically avid supporter of local public schools and local public school levies, I'm suddenly finding my February calendar full of open houses, meet-the-school coffee hours, and tours for the local private school circuit. Not only that, but I'm actually finding myself excited about the possibilities of some of these schools. It's not that our local schools aren't good. I've done the research, I know they're up to par. It's just that the world of private schools offers so many more options and experiences. It goes beyond the simplicity of better educational activities and enrichment areas - most of the private schools actually have operational hours that line up relatively well with normal working hours, including the holy grail for dual-income families - FULL DAY KINDERGARTEN! Our options in the public school are limited when it comes to full day options and extended care programs.

I'll admit that this may be coming from a position of bias, though. I was lucky enough to go to a Montessori school through first grade, after which my parents stuck us all over in a catholic school (it only lasted one year, but that's another story). I LOVED Montessori school. I excelled there, according to the (very detailed) school records that my teachers kept. I see Charlie excelling in the same kind of environment, and I want him to be able to stay there. I want him to have that kind of solid educational background, to really grow into a love of learning, and to have the Montessori freedom to develop the skills that he's most interested in. Yes, a lot of that also comes from the home environment - I absolutely recognize that. And of course, millions of kids succeed at public schools and go on to do wonderful things.

Beyond that, being back in school has forced me to brush the dust off of my old sociological imagination. Part of me wonders if some of the motivation is being able to do for him what my parents couldn't do for us, the whole idea that you want your children to succeed and surpass what you've accomplished. Maybe I want to give him the educational experience that my parents weren't able to give me. Don't get me wrong, my mom did an amazing job raising us to be curious about our world. She fostered a love of books and a love of learning and it was just assumed in our house that college would naturally follow high school, even though neither of my parents had degrees. Even so, I remember being pretty miserable when I started going to a traditional school. I just hate the idea of having to take him out of his pleasant little learning environment and stick him somewhere else.

Of course, that very well may happen. Researching private schools has involved a good amount of sticker shock.

But I'm probably over-thinking it, anyway. That's what graduate students do, after all.

Old Lady in a Bar

2012-01-18T22:15:00.007-05:00

I feel like the last month has just been a lesson in "you are no longer a spring chicken." From the Sparkle Girls Night Out to the whole Back-to-School deal, I suddenly feel like my college days were eons ago and that I'm completely out of touch with "youth culture." Not that it's a problem, it's just funny how we obviously get older every day, and it's not until you find yourself in a situation where you are one of the oldEST that you realize just how much time has actually passed.

GNO consisted of an evening dinner and drinks. We met up for dinner at a reasonable hour, and left the restaurant a few hours later, thanks to craptastically slow service that resulted in 10 30-something women playing the "penis game." Because we're mature. We headed a few blocks over to the collection of bars that make up Mt. Adams. They were all empty. Well, I take that back - they weren't all empty, they were mostly empty with a smattering of older people - but no music, no activity. We went from place to place and eventually ended up at a bar called The Pavillion.

This is the last time I was at Pavillion:

Wow.

Of course, there's no one at Pavillion, either, and we can't figure out why Mt. Adams is totally empty, until someone looks at their watch and realized that it's only 9:30. Flashback to college years, when the pre-party didn't even begin until 10. The party hadn't even started, and we were ready to go to bed. Instant realization - we ARE the older people (** insert twilight zone music here **).

We got our beers and danced anyway, to songs that I've never heard of. All was going along well, when suddenly I heard the opening sounds of a very familiar song.

(side note: all of the scenes in color are from the NKOTB: Live in LA concert. I may have owned it. On VHS.)

Oh, snap. Did the DJ just call us out for being OLD??

He followed it up with another classic:

It was ON. He laughed at us and said that he feels old in that bar, too, because ZOMG, he was twenty-freaking-THREE! But it was ok, because he then proceeded to spin us a flipping sweet mix of the best late 90s dance music, ever.

It was a lovely night out with the ladies. Now, all I need to do is come to terms with the fact that I am "That Old Lady" that my friends used to point and giggle about, who thinks she and her girlfriends are hot stuff out on the dance floor. Whatevs. At least I still have my dignity, which is more than I can say for some of the girls we saw. Culottes? Really?

Do you Tebow?

2012-01-14T14:21:00.000-05:00

I'm part of the minority - I'm not a Tebow fan. Not even the tiniest bit. I'm super torn today because Tebow and his team are going to New England to play the Patriots. The only team for which my loathing even comes close to approximating my hatred for the red sox. What's a New York sports fan to do?

And because going back to class has re-activated my Sociological Imagination, here's some food for thought - What if Tim Tebow were Muslim?

One of These Things is Not Like the Others

2012-01-12T00:09:00.005-05:00

There have been little quirks through the years that remind me that Charlie will be his own person and have his own way of doing things no matter what I do or say. What I call "see-saws" are "teeter-totters" to him and the window coverings that I call "shades" are "blinds." I'm often corrected on these points. And god forbid I pronounce "latkes" wrong. "No no, mom, it's Lat-KUS!" (and how awesome is it that they made latkes at school to learn about Chanukah?)

These are just things I have to live with, given that my child is growing up in a different state than I did, with different naming conventions for every day objects. (The one thing I will put my foot down on is the soda vs. pop issue. "Pop" is a sound. "Soda" is a drink.)

Anyway. So there are little nuances here and there when it comes to raising a kid, but what no one mentioned, not even one little line in the million parenting books I read, is that there's a potential that two right-handed people can produce a left-handed kid. I suspected from a very early age, and his teachers recently confirmed, that he's a lefty. He eats, draws, and now writes (!) left-handed. It's an interesting situation I'm finding myself in. He's been enjoying practicing writing letters lately, and often asks one of us to sit down with him and show him how it's done. I'm really struggling with the whole left-handed thing. I can't for the life of me figure out how to show him the way to hold a pencil in his left hand. I can't figure out how to guide his writing the way he asks me to, because when I hold his left hand and try to write with my left hand it just gets ugly. The saddest part is that he's got this dry-erase book that he loves, but since he's writing left-handed his arm drags across the work he's already done and erases it all. I can totally understand how that would be frustrating to him.

I wanted to be a lefty so bad when I was growing up! I thought it was cool and exotic. I guess this is what I get.

The upside is that there's always a market for left-handed relief pitching!

ETA: Did you know that lefties can have their very own special way of making letters?

30 While 30 - Back to School!

2012-01-06T06:23:00.000-05:00

One of my 30 While 30 goals is to make some progress on earning that PhD I never finished. The only things standing between me and greatness are a theory class, a preliminary exam, a literature review, and a dissertation. In December, I submitted an application to be re-instated to my PhD program. December 30th, I received notification that I had been re-admitted. On Tuesday, I started that theory class. It's official, I'm a "non-traditional" student. I remember that back when I was a naive 1st-year MA student I looked at the PhD students who had "real jobs" and families and wonder how in the world they made it work. As ~~luck~~ failure to complete my degree in a reasonable time frame would have it, 7.5 years, a marriage, and a 3-year old later, I'm one of the 30-something-year-old students who shows up to class in professional clothes and feels slightly self-conscious about carrying a backpack.

I used to have an office here, three floors from the top. Crosley Tower is one of the largest poured-concrete structures every made. It's also quite possibly the ugliest building I've ever seen in person. 8 windows per floor, no natural light in the hallways, and one bathroom (either men's or women's) nested under the stairwells in alternating floors.

It's a long uphill climb, as I've been out of the loop so long that there are three new faculty members to get to know, an entirely new prelim structure, and a ton of research to catch up on. My dissertation will be going in an entirely different direction than originally planned, given that there's been 5 years worth of development in cohabitation and I'm now in the health field. It just makes more sense to start over, and if I'm starting from a blank slate, I may as well choose a more relevant topic.

Whee!

Happy 2012!

2012-01-03T06:35:00.000-05:00

Get your party hats out, because I'm back from my annual Blogcation! We had a fantastic 10 days (mostly) unplugged from the interwebs. We had dance parties, built lego towns, cleaned the house, organized, played outside, and snowtubed. The best part may have been Charlie letting us sleep until 8:00. Sure, that made it pretty rough to drag my ass out of bed at 5:30 this morning, but it was amazing while it lasted. Spending an entire 11 days with my 3-year-old was fantastic. Spending time with him AND my whole gigantic family in New Jersey was even better. I'm so glad we were able to go "home" for christmas.

Christmas was great. Santa left some cool presents for Charlie, I got to meet my new nephew, Baby Angelo, and Husband Charlie gifted me with a super cool rock.

We even managed to get a family picture with everyone in it. This was the joke version just for grandma. We're irreverent like that.

I had a good Mom's Night Out, went to my first NFL game, and celebrated New Year's Eve with some good friends.

Charlie thought the party was so great that he continued it the next morning. I think he looks like a deranged super hero.

Anywho. I also managed to make some progress on my 30 while 30 list, which I'll post about tomorrow. Or sometime. For now, I've got some catching up to do! Happy new year!

Merry Christmas, Peeps!

2011-12-24T20:49:00.001-05:00

I've got a sleeping child, coffee with Bailey's, and the start of the Christmas Story 24-hour marathon. Hope you all have a great Christmas!

Christmas Flashback!

2011-12-21T03:54:00.001-05:00

Ok, I'll freely admit to owning the NKOTB Christmas CD way back in the day. It was a staple among me and the sibs, and my parents grudgingly allowed it into the holiday rotation, along with Harry Connick, Jr. and the old classic Very Special Christmas albums. Our favorite track was "Funky Funky Christmas," and our very favorite line was when Joey Mac talked about his Santa mishap:

Sneaking downstairs on Christmas Eve
I saw a sight that you just wouldn't believe
St. Nick by the fireplace dusting off his head with a frown on his face
He said hay - said what - he said you - I said what
He said you left the fire burning and I burnt my butt
so now I've learned you've got to turn the fireplace down
so Santa won't get burned

NKOTB was a big freaking deal, as evidenced by their holiday appearance on the Arsenio Hall show. Talk about a blast from the past!

This also happened to be the year that I furiously demanded my dad stop making fun of the NKOTB, because they were going to be BIGGER THAN THE BEATLES!! What do 10-year-olds know, anyway? I believe it was in response to this song, that my dad heard on the radio one morning and then insisted on playing over and over and over for us. I was beside myself with "OMFG! How could they DO that?! That is SO not funny!"

Not that I was ever a big fan of that song, to begin with, what with the OCD and the image of poor grandma getting run over by the sled, but that was just taking it too far.

May your christmases be very funky funky :)

Holiday Letter, 2011

2011-12-19T00:55:00.000-05:00

Dear Family and Friends,

We hope this letter finds you well. What a year this has been! Early this summer, we took a trip to Colorado for a weekend of adventure. Charlie showed off his super survival skills by filtering mountain water for us to drink. Jené learned that she has no future as a triathlete after a disastrous attempt at downhill mountain biking. Thankfully, the blood loss was minimal and the bruises healed after a few months. This past July, we joined the world in celebration as Lord Voldemort was finally defeated after a seven-year long battle. In other exciting news, we learned that the maximum number of Lego blocks that can be stacked in a single vertical tower is 380. Perhaps most importantly, they recently re-paved the road to the local Dunkin Donuts. We’re enjoying the new smooth surface.

Charlie has been traveling the country to sell his great inventions. So far he’s seen hand-fishing in Mississippi, ate a mean open-faced roast beef sandwich out of the back of some lady’s trailer in Tennessee, gave a presentation in a smoker’s shack in South Carolina, and managed to make it out of Alabama with the F5 hot on his heels. Work is going well for him, though – one of his seals is actually being used to help with the Fukushima Plant clean-up. God help us all. In an effort to prepare for the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse, he has taken up shooting as a hobby.

Jené turned the big 3-0 this year and decided it was finally time to toss the fake ID. No danger of being mistaken for an underage drinker at this point. During a well-intentioned effort to look more like an adult, she learned the hard way that getting highlights at a discount salon probably isn’t the best idea. She continues to travel to DC on a regular basis. She says that it’s “for work,” but we all know that it’s because there’s a Ben & Jerry’s on the ground floor of the office building. She’s been cleaning up in competitions, winning the office NCAA pool, a euchre tournament, and the age-group award in a local 5K. Sadly, she’s in no danger of ever actually winning a race, and missed her sub-four-hour marathon by ten (bleeping) seconds. It’s been three months, and we still haven’t heard the end of it.

Charlie recently graduated from booger-eating to peeing standing up (as long as the toilet isn’t self-flushing). That’s Charlie, Jr., not the older one. He has also taken up running as a hobby. He has participated in three races thus far, but his favorite place to run is away from the bathtub. He is a singing and dancing fool, and attended his first live concert in September when Yo Gabba Gabba! came to town. He brought down the house in the preschool holiday concert with his improvised dance routing during “Frosty the Snowman.” He is an absolute geek in training, and we’re cultivating his love for all things Star Wars. We had our proudest parenting moment yet when he mentioned that he was thankful for “numbers” during our thanksgiving dinner. We just hope they aren’t prime.

All the best from our family to yours,
Charlie, Jené, and Charlie

White Wine in the Sun

2011-12-15T05:00:00.003-05:00

It's christmastime, which means it's once again time for me to share one of my most favorite christmas songs, ever. This year's holiday season is shaping up well, so far. I've wined and dined with a collection of lovely ladies, made merry with my co-workers at our holiday party, decided to forgo the weeks of christmas cookie baking in favor of a few batches of good fudge, and I've got a lunch celebration with the BFF coming up next week. Even more importantly, I got a new nephew on Tuesday! Baby Angelo was born early Tuesday morning. My brother and his girlfriend had the baby at home, which really freaks me out, but apparently worked quite well for them. Talk about a great christmas present!

Charlie's holiday concert is tonight. This is the first year that he really "gets" the whole idea of christmas. They're teaching them about all of the winter celebrations at school, Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, so there have been some interesting questions about why we don't have candles (a menorah) and why doesn't everyone have a christmas tree. In working through all of those questions, I've been trying to really hit on the message that everyone believes different things, and that's ok. In our house, we're focusing on christmas as a time to spend celebrating family and giving to others. It's hard to get that message across with all of the commercialization (same issue, I'm assuming, with the christian parents who want a religious focus on their own celebration), but we're making the effort. I can't wait to spend christmas back in Jersey with most of Charlie's whole huge extended Italian family.

This song represents the perfect answer when people ask why non-christians even bother to celebrate the season.

I'm looking forward to Christmas
It's sentimental I know
But I just really like it

I am hardly religious
I’d rather break bread with Dawkins than Desmond Tutu
To be honest

And yes I have all of the usual objections to consumerism
The commercialisation of ancient religions
And the westernisation of a dead Palestinian
Press-ganged into selling Playstations and beer
But I still really like it

I really like Christmas
Though I'm not expecting
A visit from Jesus

I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun

I don't go for ancient wisdom
I dont believe just cos ideas are tenacious
It means they are worthy

I'm ambivalent to churches
Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords
Though the lyrics are dodgy

And yes I have all of the usual objections to miseducation
Of children forced into a cult institution and taught to externalise blame
And to feel ashamed and to judge things as plain right or wrong
But I quite like the songs

I really like London
Though Christmas is not quite as white as I’d hoped
It’s kind of European

I'm not expecting great presents
Ye olde combination of socks, jocks and chocolate
Is just fine by me

Cos I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun

And you my baby girl
My jetlagged infant daughter
You'll be handed round the room
Like a puppy at a petting zoo

And you’re too young to know
But you will learn one day
That wherever you are and whatever you face
These are the people
Who'll make you feel safe in the world
My sweet blue-eyed girl

And if my baby girl
When you're twenty one or thirty one
And Christmas comes around
And you find yourself 9000 miles from home

You’ll know whatever comes
Your brothers and sisters and me and your mum.
Will be waiting for you in the sun

Girl when Christmas comes
Your brothers and sisters
Your aunts and your uncles
Your grandparents, cousins
And me and your mum.
Will be drinking white wine in the sun
Waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun
Waiting for you

I really like Christmas
It’s sentimental I know

On the Twelfth Day of BlogFestivus...

2011-12-12T21:28:00.001-05:00

Happy Twelfth Day of BlogFestivus!

On the Twelfth day, we get Twelve Drummers Drumming.

(Is it just me, or does "twelfth" look like a made up word?)

So when I was little, you were allowed to pick an instrument to play in the band when you were in 5th grade.

I decided that I was going to play the drums. My parents asked me over and over again if I was SURE that I wanted to play the drums, hell, if I was SURE that I wanted to play any instrument, at all. After all, my brother was a super talented musical genius, surely there couldn't be TWO child wonders in the same household. Surely.

Hells yeah, I wanted to play the drums. And I was going to play the hell out of those drums. I had visions of being the next Dana Carvey (we had recently seen him play the drums on an SNL christmas special in character as the Church Lady). I was going to practice every day, I was going to work really super hard, and I was going to totally rock that shit. ROCK it.

As with many 10-year-olds who have high aspirations, I failed. I failed miserably. I never got past Hot Cross Buns. I never made it to the spring concert. Hell, I never made it through the first ten lessons. Part of it was the lack of practice, more of it was the lack of rhythm. Still more of it was the lack of give-a-damn. I tried a few more instruments after that, with no more success. In fact, toward the end of my 6th grade year, Mr. Richards kicked me out of the program, altogether, because I still hadn't learned how to read music.

That's when I quit being sad, and started being awesome, instead.

Also, I hate the Little Drummer Boy song. Actually, I hate all songs that require you to sing weird syllables, like pa rum pa pum pum. We had to sing it in choir one year and I felt like a tool.

And so we've come to the sad end of BlogFestivus. Thanks to Blogdramedy for putting the fun together!

Don't forget to check out the rest of the Festivusers!

Fix it or Deal Shouts from the Abyss Stevil All My Answers Tori Nelson A Few Clowns Short Grouchy Mom Rewind Revise My life: a constant work in progress Becoming Bitter PamBamBam Clan of the Cave Hair Words that Rhyme with Purple

On the Eleventh Day of BlogFestivus...

2011-12-11T21:52:00.000-05:00

Happy Eleventh Day of BlogFestivus!

On the Eleventh day, we get Eleven Pipers Piping.

Honestly, I'm struggling where to go with this one without incriminating myself, so I'm going to plead the fifth.

A recorder is kind of like a pipe, right? Or maybe it is a pipe? A part of the same pipe family? Does it matter? In the end it's a piece of plastic that makes ears bleed.

(source)

One christmas, when I was very small and my siblings were even smaller, my grandma bought us each a recorder. Mine was ivory colored, my brother's was green, and I don't remember my sister's. They came with a little book that was supposed to teach us how to play 10ish songs. It had little diagrams for where your fingers were supposed to go, and which holes needed to be covered when. But we were kids, and we quickly discovered that it didn't really matter if you were playing it correctly, as long as there was noise coming out. And boy, was there noise coming out. We ran around with those things for days, blowing as hard and loud as we could (that's what she said) with no rhyme, rhythm, or reason. One morning we woke up and they were gone.

Now that I'm a parent, myself, I understand a few things. For the love of all things holy, DO NOT BUY MY KID A RECORDER. I swear, if one of those things ever shows up under our christmas tree, I will cut a bitch. It's like a Parenting Code. Why any parent would inflict that kind of pain on any other parent is beyond me.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the Festivusers!

Fix it or Deal Shouts from the Abyss Stevil All My Answers Tori Nelson A Few Clowns Short Grouchy Mom Rewind Revise My life: a constant work in progress Becoming Bitter PamBamBam Clan of the Cave Hair Words that Rhyme with Purple

On the Tenth Day of Christmas...

2011-12-10T06:34:00.002-05:00

... a departure from the norm. Happy Tenth Day of BlogFestivus!

The Tenth Day brings us Ten Lords A Leapin'. I've been dreading this day since I read the challenge, and I just can't come up with a song that isn't either stupid or sacrilegious. Not that I care about such things, but for the sake of all of you....

I pulled my college transcripts last week (finally finishing my PhD, I hope) and noticed that there was an F in my records. An F. It was a creative writing class, for poetry. I had completely forgotten about that whole fiasco. Anyway. Totally irrelevant to Leapin' Lords.

I'm actually going to tell you a true story about leaping. We'll leave out the lords for now. This can also serve as a warning to women who have not yet experienced the joy of pregnancy and don't know that the Kegel muscles get wrecked and wrecked again and are never quite the same (moms, you know I'm right. don't try to tell me you've never snissed). For the backstory, husband and I are crazy. We exercise together, and one of our favorite programs is P90X. P90X includes an exercise video called Plyometrics, which means "jump training." Jump training? Pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Here's a screenshot I found online.

Here's a video, even better.

Knee Jump Tuck - exactly the exercise that cause my... issue.

So imagine that particular muscle group being not-quite-as-strong-as-they-apparently-should-be, drinking lots of water all day so that I'm properly hydrated, and then jumping around wildly for 45 minutes like they're doing in that picture up there.

Thank goodness we're doing the program in the comfort of our own basement. That would have been quite the walk of shame.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the Festivusers! I bet they don't wet their pants.

Fix it or Deal Shouts from the Abyss Stevil All My Answers Tori Nelson A Few Clowns Short Grouchy Mom Rewind Revise My life: a constant work in progress Becoming Bitter PamBamBam Clan of the Cave Hair Words that Rhyme with Purple

On the Ninth Day of Christmas...

2011-12-09T21:17:00.001-05:00

Happy Ninth Day of BlogFestivus!

So the Ninth Day brings us Nine Ladies Dancing. Dancing is most definitely not part of my skillset. To make up for dropping the ball yesterday, I've got a real treat for you guys today. If you enjoy watching people make asses out of themselves on the interwebs, then you're going to love this.

First, a little backstory. When I was in 3rd grade, I was invited to my first dance party for my friend Denesha's birthday. It was the days of Pump Up the Jam, and boy, were we jamming. I thought we were all laughing and dancing and having a good time, until I realized that most of the other kids were laughing AT me, not with me. They were all mimicking my Bunny Hop move. You know the one, where you don't really know what to do with your arms and legs, so you just kind of bounce around in one spot? I never lived that down. Three years later, at the Big Sixth Grade Dance, Denesha's cousin Gary sought me out to show me that he still remembered the Bunny Hop. 22 years later, nothing has changed.

Nothing, that is, except the introduction of the Xbox Kinect and Dance Central. Oh, how I love Dance Central. It almost makes me feel like I have rhythm. So today, you get me singing AND dancing. Or doing something that kind of looks like dancing. Sort of. Ok, really you get to watch me flail around trying to follow what the lady on the screen is doing. I do a very bad job. I'm blaming it on the cat trying to eat my feet.

Each time I try to shake my butt
People just think that I’m a nut
I’m just super unfly
Rhythm gene passed me by
Do I step left? Do I step right?
What’s go in on with my arms?
Don’t get to close to me, or you might come to some harm
Keep it cool, what’s the name of this song?
I can’t remember but it’s alright, alright

I can’t dance. And it’s ok.
Da doo doo doo
I can’t dance. Not a chance, babe
Da doo doo doo
I can’t dance. And it’s ok.
Duh-duh-duh
Dance. Dance. Dance. I can’t dance

This is what it's SUPPOSED to look like.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the Festivusers!

Fix it or Deal Shouts from the Abyss Stevil All My Answers Tori Nelson A Few Clowns Short Grouchy Mom Rewind Revise My life: a constant work in progress Becoming Bitter PamBamBam Clan of the Cave Hair Words that Rhyme with Purple

On the Eighth Day of Christmas...

2011-12-08T20:19:00.000-05:00

Bean drops the ball.

Really, I didn't bother to consult the master lyrics to the song, and thought it was 8 Drummers Drumming, and had a great post all lined up. Then I found out that I was wrong (of course, that's the first time something like that has ever happened), so I said to myself - Ok, you still have time. Write a song about milk at lunch. Then lunch turned into a meeting, and no songs about milk. No milk, even - I had a nice salad sitting in front of me and didn't even get to eat it until 2:00, when I was back in my office. Even then, it took me an hour because there were all these little crises happening. Whatever. So then I said - Ok, you still have the evening, after bedtime. Then I left work 30 minutes later than usual, sat in traffic that I generally avoid, and then right as I went to turn onto the highway, they closed it. An hour later I pulled into my driveway, did a mental scan of the fridge and cabinet contents, and pulled right back out to go to the grilled cheese place. Now the kid is in bed, and I'm wiped. No song for you!

Here's the milk, though.

What, you thought I'd leave it out?

Go check out the Festivusers who didn't blow it.

Fix it or Deal Shouts from the Abyss Stevil All My Answers Tori Nelson A Few Clowns Short Grouchy Mom Rewind Revise My life: a constant work in progress Becoming Bitter PamBamBam Clan of the Cave Hair Words that Rhyme with Purple

On the Seventh Day of Christmas...

2011-12-07T02:29:00.001-05:00

Happy Seventh Day of BlogFestivus!

Don't forget to check out the rest of the Festivusers!

Fix it or Deal Shouts from the Abyss Stevil All My Answers Tori Nelson A Few Clowns Short Grouchy Mom Rewind Revise My life: a constant work in progress Becoming Bitter PamBamBam Clan of the Cave Hair Words that Rhyme with Purple

On the Sixth Day of Christmas

2011-12-06T18:18:00.003-05:00

Happy Sixth Day of BlogFestivus!

After a few rounds of "California Swans" in the style of Katy Perry, I decided to go with the sounds of LMFAO after I heard Sexy and I Know It on the way home from work. It was a lightning bolt of inspiration. You'll see.

Actually, originally I wanted to share a cheer that I learned when I was 8 and had delusions of being a super cute cheerleader, but then I forgot. That's why I never made the squad. That, and so many other reasons. But that's a story for another day. How funky is your chicken? How loose is your goose? Our goose is totally loose.

When I walk on by, ganders be looking like damn, she fly
I strut to the beat, walking through the park like I own the streets, yeah
This is how I roll, feathery body, taking my stroll
I'm a goose, already told ya so
And like Michael Phelps I got the webbed feet, yo

Girl look at that body
Girl look at that body
Girl look at that body
I-I-I-I wear down!

When I walk through the park, this is what I see
All the ducks stop and they staring at me
My beak is sharper than a tack and I ain't afraid to show it

I'm sexy and I know it

When the snow falls down, I'm already out in a warmer town
I like Miami beach, I hike up my feathers to tan my cheeks
That's just how I roll, come on fellas it's time to go
We headed to the park, baby don't be nervous
No shoes, no shirt, and I still get service

Don't forget to check out the rest of the Festivusers!

Fix it or Deal Shouts from the Abyss Stevil All My Answers Tori Nelson A Few Clowns Short Grouchy Mom Rewind Revise My life: a constant work in progress Becoming Bitter PamBamBam Clan of the Cave Hair Words that Rhyme with Purple

On the Fifth Day of Christmas...

2011-12-05T01:54:00.005-05:00

Happy Fifth Day of BlogFestivus!

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation has to be one of my top two all-time favorite christmas movies. I love everything about it. One of the best lines in that movie has to be "Merry Christmas! Shitter's full." I laugh just thinking about it. Classic.

There is, however, a part that I'm not a big fan of. It's the part where the cat chews through the christmas tree lights. I suffer from ostrich syndrome, so I spent most of my childhood pretending that the cat was absolutely fine, just a little static-y.

How is this relevant? Well, the fifth gift of the BlogFestivus song is Five Golden Rings, and Christmas Vacation provided me with the inspiration. You'll see.

We worked on it for days,
Strung the lights in just the right way
Hung the ornaments evenly spaced
Decorating that was truly aced

How were we to know that it wouldn’t last the season
We were proud, proud, proud, didn’t think of any reason
That by Christmas eve
The tree would leave, the tree would leave

It all happened so suddenly
As we sat back to admire the tree
A snap a pop a yelp, and then a hiss,
Rising smoke a sign something’s amiss

The tree turned into a burning ring of fire
The cat wasn’t the same once he chewed right through that wire
The tinsel burned, burned, burned,
The tree’s on fire, the tree’s on fire

Don't forget to check out the rest of the Festivusers!

Fix it or Deal Shouts from the Abyss Stevil All My Answers Tori Nelson A Few Clowns Short Grouchy Mom Rewind Revise My life: a constant work in progress Becoming Bitter PamBamBam Clan of the Cave Hair Words that Rhyme with Purple

On the Fourth Day of Christmas...

2011-12-04T03:26:00.005-05:00

Happy Fourth Day of BlogFestivus!

Day Four brings us a gift of calling birds. I guess they're kind of like having teenagers around? That's sure how it was for my parents, anyway. For my 13th birthday, they gifted me with my own phone number. At least, they said it was a gift, anyway - as I've gotten older I've realized that it was probably more for them, so I didn't tie up their line with "Do you think he likes me?!?!?!" conversations every hour of the day.

Funny how things work, though, because in my old age I've decided that talking on the phone is something that I can do without. I hate phone conversations. You never know if you're calling someone at a good time, or if you're socially awkward, like me, then you never know if they really want to be talking to you or when they want to hang up or how to fill those inevitable awkward pauses. That's not to say that I never talk on the phone - I still talk to aunts and grandma regularly. I love texting. My BFF and I have actually spoken on the phone two whole times. TWICE. Once was before I had a phone that had text capabilities, and the other time was by accident, when one of us butt-dialed. So, in honor of my dislike of the phone, I have yet another song for you. This one's short. I hope you enjoy it.

Phone calls are old-fashioned, baby,
From an old-school time
Just because you’ve got my number
Don’t mean that I’m online
Take me off your speed dial,
I don’t want to hear that ring

(Don’t) call me! On my line,
Please don’t call me any, any time.
(Don’t) call me! On my line,
But you can text me any, any time.

Shower me with emails, baby,
Find me on g-chat,
Hit me up on Facebook please,
That's where the party's at.
Phone calls make my heart beat fast,
It’s a generation gap

(Don’t) call me! On my line,
Please don’t call me any, any time.
(Don’t) call me! On my line,
But you can text me any, any time.
Text me.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the Festivusers!

*just a note to the other participants - weekends are mostly offline for me, so if I don't get to your entry, I'll be by early monday morning :)

Fix it or Deal Shouts from the Abyss Stevil All My Answers Tori Nelson A Few Clowns Short Grouchy Mom Rewind Revise My life: a constant work in progress Becoming Bitter PamBamBam Clan of the Cave Hair Words that Rhyme with Purple

On the Third Day of Christmas...

2011-12-03T05:58:00.003-05:00

Happy Third Day of BlogFestivus!

I'm finally stepping outside of the Beatles box, and moving onto what should be a very familiar song to all of you. In fact, I recently learned that it's my Running Buddy's favorite karaoke song. I think she does a much better job than me.

I'm just a small-town hen
Living in this farmhouse pen
I may be small, but my eggs are eaten everywhere

Diners, drive-throughs
Up and down the grocers' aisles
With waffles and bacon on the side

Ketchup, Hollandaise
Scrambled, poached, or sunny-side
Eggs are the building blocks of life

Some like them boiled, some like them fried
My eggs are eaten far and wide
I just wish someone would take me for a ride

Night-life, city lights
Suburban sprawl and urban blight
I'd like to see the world with my own two eyes

Farm life smothers me
I just long to be set free
People love my eggs, I'm sure that they'll love me

Don't stop egg-eating
It's my ticket to freedom
I'm a little hen with big dreams.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the Festivusers!

*just a note to the other participants - weekends are mostly offline for me, so if I don't get to your entry, I'll be by early monday morning :)

Fix it or Deal Shouts from the Abyss Stevil All My Answers Tori Nelson A Few Clowns Short Grouchy Mom Rewind Revise My life: a constant work in progress Becoming Bitter PamBamBam Clan of the Cave Hair Words that Rhyme with Purple

On the Second Day of Christmas...

2011-12-02T06:55:00.004-05:00

Happy Second Day of BlogFestivus!

Hope you all enjoyed the little song I put together for you yesterday. Today, I'm treating you to still more fabulous vocal styling. Better yet, this time you get to actually see my smiling face. It's a second Beatles song, with great apologies to Lisleman for playing the part of Yoko Ono this holiday season. I can't help it, the subjects in question have just fit so nicely so far. What subject do we have today? Well, the Two Turtle Doves, of course!

ETA: I'm sad about how this one turned out, because I did a really great recording in my basement, complete with props, only to discover that there was no audio recording. I'll have to work on that. For now, you're stuck with me singing in my (parked) car. You do get a bonus shot of my lap as I struggle to turn the camera off at the end, too.

Two turtle do-oves,
Two turtle do-oves,
Two turtle do-oh-oves

I don’t need another thing, my friend
My space is getting tight
Don't get me any gifts my friend
Make Santa's load real light
I don't need another sweater
I’ve got two turtle doves

Don’t give me fancy soaps, my dear
Or a scarf to wear outside
I don’t need the latest game system,
though the new Droid would be nice
I don’t need another tchotchke,
I’ve got two turtle doves

Two turtle do-oves,
Singing up in my tree
Two turtle do-oves
Oh, oh, oh, oh

Say you won’t buy me anything
And I'll be satisfied
Just share some Christmas cheer with me,
Hey, that would be alright
Cause I don't need no christmas presents
I’ve got two turtle doves

Two turtle do-oves,
Singing up in my tree
Two turtle do-oves
Two turtle do-oh-oves

Fin

Don't forget to check out the rest of the Festivusers!

Fix it or Deal Shouts from the Abyss Stevil All My Answers Tori Nelson A Few Clowns Short Grouchy Mom Rewind Revise My life: a constant work in progress Becoming Bitter PamBamBam Clan of the Cave Hair Words that Rhyme with Purple

On the First Day of Christmas...

2011-12-01T06:19:00.020-05:00

Hey look, something new! Lisleman told us about a new blog challenge going on at blogdramedy this month. The basic idea is that you write a piece every day for 12 days using the gifts sung about in the 12 Days of Christmas. 12 pieces of 144 words. Plus, the title of the challenge is BlogFestivus, and how could I possibly pass that up?

As you all know, the first gift in the song is a Partridge in a Pear Tree. I decided to start things off with a bang, and I wrote you a little song instead of a story. To make it even more... interesting... I decided to go ahead and sing it for you, complete with powerpoint illustrations.

So here I present to you my first ever internet karaoke attempt. It's bad, but that's ok. Where else, other than the interwebs, is it ok to humiliate yourself?

And the lyrics, if you'd like to sing along, to the tune of "Blackbird," by The Beatles.

Partridge in a pear tree doing alright
Hanging up some Christmas lights
All the lights
Tried and tried again but they just weren’t getting bright

Partridge in a pear tree staying up all night
Still trying to hang up those Christmas lights
Spent half the night
Only to discover there’s a single burned out light

Burned out light
Burned out light
There is no light in the dark black night

Burned out light
Burned out light
There is no light in the dark black night

Partridge in a pear tree in the middle of the night
Packed it in and threw away the lights
Good-bye lights

Who the hell decided to make those Series circuit lights?
Who the hell decided to make those Series circuit lights?
Who the hell decided to make those Series circuit lights?

And this makes one hundred forty four words!

If you thought that was bad, I'm sure the other participants have great entries to make you forget all about my warbling.

Would you ever guess that I was in competition choir in high school?

Fix it or Deal Shouts from the Abyss Stevil All My Answers Tori Nelson A Few Clowns Short Grouchy Mom Rewind Revise My life: a constant work in progress Becoming Bitter PamBamBam Clan of the Cave Hair Words that Rhyme with Purple

Go the F*ck to Sleep

2011-11-30T12:29:00.005-05:00

I posted about this a while ago, but the original video was taken down. It's back now, and just in time to provide the soundtrack to my own personal hell.

Bedtime in our house hasn't been shorter than 90 minutes in well over a week. Even after he's finally asleep, he gets up every few hours for potty trips, tissues, needing to be tucked back in, whatever he can think of. These are all things that he can easily do himself between the hours of 7AM to 8PM, but as soon as it's "bedtime" a switch flips and he's no longer so self-sufficient.

Go The F*k to Sleep reading by Samuel L. Jackson from Nick McCoy on Vimeo.

I'm losing my mind. The night wakings are killing me slowly and the 4AM up-for-the-day deal just isn't right. Every time I'm awakened to the sound of his bedroom door opening, all I can think is "You've got to be fucking kidding me!" Mom fail, indeed. I don't like feeling snappy toward my kid. I don't want to be "that mom," who turns into an evil monster and yells at her kid to get back in bed. I just want a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. Is that too much to ask, 3.25 years in?

Help?

30 Days of Thanks

2011-11-30T06:53:00.011-05:00

Just in time to wrap up the 30 Days of Thanks meme, I received this sobering statistic in my inbox this morning.

Americans' Ability to Afford Food Nears Three-Year Low (Gallup)

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The percentage of Americans reporting that they had enough money to buy the food they or their families needed continued to decline in October, nearing the record low seen in November 2008. The percentage who did not lack money for food in 2011 fell to 79.8% from 80.1% in September, continuing a decline that began in April.

Today, I am thankful that I have enough.

30 Days of Thanks - Catching Up

2011-11-28T06:43:00.042-05:00

Clearly, I've missed quite a few days during last week's absence from Blogland. We'll just dispense with the numbered days, altogether. I'll just be glad I ended on 18 instead of the odd (and prime!) 17.

I'm actually thankful for that absence, itself. It was somewhat pleasant to disconnect from the Facebook and the Blogs and the Interwebs, as a whole. I went an entire week without sitting in front of a computer. Sure, the smartphones allow us to do all of the same stuff, but there was so much going on that I didn't even think to pull it out.

I ~~don't always~~ rarely see eye-to-eye with my mother-in-law on issues big and small. We have very different viewpoints on things like politics and religion and women working outside of the home. We've had more than our fair share of spats and "incidents." All that being said, I'm still so thankful that we were able to go out and visit them for thanksgiving. As I said last week, it's been 5 years since Charlie and his two siblings were all in the same room. I'm so glad that we were finally all able to be together for a holiday - in-laws and brothers and sisters and spouses and kids. I'm thankful that we have jobs that allow us to travel often to visit that family, that we can afford to make those trips, and that we have a family to visit, at all, even if we don't always get along.

I'm thankful that the kids all played so well together, and that we got at least one picture of all five of them. It made me so happy to see Charlie playing happily alongside his cousin, who is only 2 months younger. They had a great time dancing and singing and building lego houses.

I'm thankful that the in-laws ~~offered~~ begged to stay at the hotel, because it allowed the six adult children to enjoy some much-needed bonding time after the kids went to bed. We shared wine and crispin and brownies and stayed up late into the night laughing and reminiscing and watching bad youtube clips.

I'm so glad that we had that time together - we're literally on opposite sides of the country and I hate it. I wish that our kids could all grow up together and see each other regularly, but since we can't, we'll just have to make the most out of every opportunity we get. We've gotten pretty good at that over the years.

30 Days of Thanks - Day 18

2011-11-23T22:37:00.002-05:00

Today I'm thankful for having awesome sibling-in-laws and super cute nephews. I'm so glad Charlie has cousins his age to play with. The last time all three siblings were in the same room was Christmas of 2006. Back then, there was one baby. Today, there are five, including three 3-year-olds, who are providing me with endless entertainment. I'm so thankful that Charlie has had the opportunity to spend the holiday with his cousins.

I'm also thankful that it's not my house being destroyed this week :p

Nana got way more than she bargained for.

30 Days of Thanks - Day 17

2011-11-21T06:49:00.000-05:00

Today I'm thankful for Mondays that are also Fridays! Even better when they're jeans days and half days, too.

30 Days of Thanks - Day 16

2011-11-19T01:35:00.008-05:00

Today I'm thankful for Peppermint Mocha coffee dates, nights out with the BFF sans kids and husbands, Stella Artois and French Fries, cheesy vampire movies, and whoever decided to build the De Lorean and park it down at the Levee tonight.

30 Days of Thanks - Day 15

2011-11-17T19:48:00.002-05:00

Today I'm thankful for the elusive double-strawberry-starburst pack, a fun day out of the office at a geeky GIS conference, good company on the 112 minute drive down, and a multi-disc CD changer to get me through rural Kentucky when all the radio stations are playing country music.

30 Days of Thanks - Day 14

2011-11-16T20:29:00.003-05:00

Today I'm thankful for Tosh.0 reruns. I wish I had discovered the show sooner, so thank you Comedy Central for the veritable Tosh.0 marathon set to record on my DVR. I'm also thankful for DVR.

My favorite Tosh.0 clip is posted on my running blog. Check it out if you need a good laugh.

Husband was surprised that Tosh made my List. Not like he, himself isn't proof that I have a thing for geeky men.

30 Days of Thanks - Day 13

2011-11-15T22:14:00.001-05:00

Today I'm thankful for mechanics who don't treat women like idiots who know nothing about the cars they drive, the Lithium station on Sirius in the sweet rental car they gave me, $7.99 pizza night at Noce's Pizza, and my husband-as-workout-partner who keeps me motivated when I'd prefer to sit on the couch.

I'm also thankful that I don't have to drive an SUV/minivan every day! Once was enough :)

30 Days of Thanks - Day 12

2011-11-14T19:47:00.005-05:00

Today I am thankful for the little moments and family memories that we're creating every day.

30 Days of Thanks - Day 11

2011-11-13T22:18:00.009-05:00

Today I am thankful for lazy Sundays that preclude blogging but leave lots of room for pancake breakfasts in pajamas, King Arthur's Perfect Pancakes, and the Reality Bites radio channel on DirecTV, because Toadies, Better Than Ezra, and Rage Against the Machine make for a very eclectic breakfast soundtrack.

30 Days of Thanks - Day 10

2011-11-12T18:50:00.000-05:00

Today I'm thankful that Ohio FINALLY got Yuengling! I don't understand why it took them so long, Pennsylvania is right next door.

Yum! I see a lot of carb-loading in my future :)

30 Days of Thanks - Day 9

2011-11-11T03:34:00.000-05:00

Today I am thankful for the five pints of Ben & Jerry's I have stashed in my freezer. It's nice to know that the hardest decision I'll have to make tonight is which one I want to eat.

Happy Friday!

30 Days of Thanks - Day 8

2011-11-10T04:00:00.006-05:00

I'm thankful that in addition to my super Little Sister, I have an equally amazing Little Brother, the middle of the trio.

TJ is a talented musician who lives in Brooklyn with his fiancee Patti.

He has a freakish ability to pick up any instrument and teach himself how to play it within a matter of hours. It used to drive me crazy when I was little - I would slave away at the piano for weeks to master a single piece, and his fingers just flew over the keys like it was nothing.

You can check out some of his music on his website.

I think he sounds like a cross between Sublime, Coldplay, and Radiohead. My most favorite song is embedded below - his version of I'll Fly Away. He did all of the vocal harmonies separately and then mixed them all together. Super talent, for real.

Best of all, he's about to be a proud dad to a baby boy. I can't wait to meet my new nephew in December!

I definitely lost out on the artistic genes, I forgot to mention that Katie is also a talented artist - she draws and paints and designs sets for plays. I'm lucky to have had such an amazing set of siblings to grow up with.

30 Days of Thanks - Day 7

2011-11-09T06:17:00.001-05:00

Today I'm thankful that I get to call a very special and inspiring person "Little Sister." Of course, she's not so little anymore, all grown up with a life of her own in the Big Apple (yes, I'm the only one of my siblings who didn't make it back east).

Not only is she smart, caring, and hilarious, but she's very unselfish and is trying to save the world.

Case in point - right now she's in the middle of a three-week trip to Africa where she's volunteering at an orphanage. She's been sending us little pictures and texts (and, every once in a while, a longer email) telling us about her adventures. Since some of our family members aren't so tech-savvy, I started a blog for her that they can visit to see what she's up to. So now I'm sharing it with you, too.

Smiling Kate Goes to Africa

30 Days of Thanks - Day 6

2011-11-08T04:06:00.000-05:00

Happy Election Day! Have you voted yet? I'm usually at the polls first thing in the morning, but Charlie decided to throw a temper tantrum (catalyst still undetermined) so I figured I'd just go after work, instead. Polling Locations are no place for a screaming 3-year-old. (but truthfully, where is?)

So today I'm thankful that I live in a country where I have the freedom to voice my desires through voting. Sure, our system isn't perfect, but whose is? I do my fair share of bitching and moaning about things, and then on election day I make my voice heard.

Did you exercise yours today?

On a separate but related note, I did learn an interesting random fact this week - did you know that voting isn't actually a Constitutional right? True story.

"The Constitution contains many phrases, clauses, and amendments detailing ways people cannot be denied the right to vote. You cannot deny the right to vote because of race or gender. Citizens of Washington DC can vote for President; 18-year-olds can vote; you can vote even if you fail to pay a poll tax. The Constitution also requires that anyone who can vote for the "most numerous branch" of their state legislature can vote for House members and Senate members.

Note that in all of this, though, the Constitution never explicitly ensures the right to vote, as it does the right to speech, for example. It does require that Representatives be chosen and Senators be elected by "the People," and who comprises "the People" has been expanded by the aforementioned amendments several times. Aside from these requirements, though, the qualifications for voters are left to the states. And as long as the qualifications do not conflict with anything in the Constitution, that right can be withheld. For example, in Texas, persons declared mentally incompetent and felons currently in prison or on probation are denied the right to vote. It is interesting to note that though the 26th Amendment requires that 18-year-olds must be able to vote, states can allow persons younger than 18 to vote, if they chose to." (source)

30 Days of Thanks - Day 5

2011-11-07T12:34:00.002-05:00

Today I am thankful that Husband Charlie has agreed to give running a shot! We're both signed up for the Leadville Trail Marathon on June 30, 2012. I'm thankful that we're going to have the experience of training for and running a marathon together. Thankful that he's willing to indulge my crazy streak, and thankful that we're both healthy enough and active enough that we just might succeed at our crazy endeavor.

What's so crazy about a marathon? Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, right? Well, this isn't just any marathon - you can read the dirty details of what we're about to embark on at See Bean Run. Certifiable, for sure.

30 Days of Thanks - Day 4

2011-11-06T22:49:00.000-05:00

Today I am thankful that I have strong and healthy legs that let me run far. Not super fast, but definitely far. 10 months ago I was completely intimidated by the box on the Flying Pig Training Group plan that called for 10 miles on a cold Saturday in January. 2 full and 3 half marathons later, my weeks just don't feel complete without a weekend 10.

Nothing wakes up the soul like an early solo run on a crisp fall morning. Add a post-run breakfast at Green Dog Cafe with bacon, biscuits, and coffee, and you've got a very happy Bean.

30 Days of Thanks - Day 3

2011-11-05T20:55:00.001-04:00

I'm thankful for Daylight Savings Time! I'm glad that I'll be able to get an extra hour of sleep tonight - I still haven't really caught up from the DC trip. Between staying up super late on Halloween, booking a 6AM flight the next morning at an airport an hour away, and being unable to turn away from late-night Friends reruns at the hotel, I didn't get much rest this week. I love my job and I love DC, but those trips are exhausting.

The extra hour means I can get a full night of sleep and still be able to squeeze in an early-morning long run. Hooray for DST!

30 Days of Thanks - Day Two

2011-11-04T05:15:00.000-04:00

Today I am thankful for a job that doesn't suck the life out of me. Once upon a time, I was a super idealistic graduate student in sociology who had a part-time job that I loved working with people that I enjoyed. Then real life (the reality of University budgets, anyway) caught up with me and I went out and got a "real job" in the world of business. Market research, to be exact. The statistics and research methods skills that I had picked up in grad school were in high demand outside of the ivory tower, because all companies have a burning desire to figure out how to sell more products to more people. Even though the work itself was tedious and soul-sucking, I was ok with it because the people I worked with were amazing. My cube-mate, in particular, became one of my very close friends.

But even though I worked for a family-friendly company with family-friendly people, I still missed having a job that was completely fulfilling. I missed doing research that would actually help PEOPLE, rather than helping a company's bottom line. One day, my old mentor from the University called asking if I knew anyone who would be interested in a job working for him on a big project. Did I know anyone?!?! Hell yes, I did! I revised my CV and emailed it over that very afternoon.

And the rest is history. Well, a very short 17-month history, anyway. Sure, there's a little bit more risk involved working for a start-up non-profit, but I'm back doing what I love and working with very lovely people. I don't spend Sunday evenings moping around because I have to go to work the next morning. I can honestly say that I love what I do, and that makes me a very lucky person, indeed.

30 Days of Thanks - Day One

2011-11-03T05:56:00.014-04:00

I'm sure you've all seen this in some incarnation floating around on Facebook and the blogosphere, so I'm jumping in the game, too. The idea is to get people (me) away from dwelling on the negatives in life and to focus attention on all of the positives - the good and happy things that make life worth living. There are no rules, which means I can be thankful for my health one day and thankful for Dunkin Peppermint Mochas the next. Take the serious with the superficial.

After my generally negative post from yesterday, it can only help. Right?

I should have started on November 1 with everyone else (30 days has November, blah blah blah), but ~~I'm a unique snowflake~~ I was at a conference in DC with internet access that was frustratingly slow.

Contrary to what it may have sounded like in my earlier pity party post, I really am so very, very thankful for my Charlies. We make a fantastic little family. I had an easy pregnancy and we had a healthy baby, and I know that we are very, very lucky to be able to say that. They truly are the center of my world, and I couldn't imagine life without them.

(photo by the incredibly talented Steph Carson)

They are the best a girl could ask for, and I'm so thankful that our paths crossed at that keg party 11 years ago, this week.

Where it Gets Painfully Real In Here

2011-11-02T19:00:00.001-04:00

So. This is something that's been weighing on me for ~~months~~ about two years, now. I've been reluctant to talk about it, firstly because it's nobody's business, and secondly because I'm afraid that if I actually write it down, it makes it too real, and I prefer to live in a somewhat ambiguous mental world when it comes to serious issues. Yes, in a previous life I was an ostrich.

I want another baby. Reeeeeeeeeeeeally, really, really, heart-breakingly really want another. Like to the point where hearing about people I know getting pregnant or planning for an addition makes my eyes prick with tears.

I feel like a horrible person for feeling like this, especially when there are so many close friends of mine struggling with infertility and pregnancy loss. I have a beautiful family, already, and I should be happy with what I've got. And I AM happy with what I've got. Very, really, truly happy.

I look at C and think about how fast these last three years have gone by and I just can't imagine never doing it again. It's not even like I want to be Michelle Duggar! I just want ONE more. Just one. That's it.

I don't think it's even so much about me here, but more about Toddler Charlie. My sister is one of my best friends. I'm so lucky to have both a brother AND a sister, and I just want one or the other for him. Some of my favorite times are those spent with my gigantic extended family reminiscing about the past, telling stories about growing up, finding long-forgotten anecdotes about how we used to play magic show and shove my sister into a wooden box, or how we tried to sell rocks on the corner for $5 each, or how we carried around my brother's tape recorder creating a cassette tape of our own radio broadcasts. I love how we had each other to lean on through thick and thin - even though things were really rough for a few years and family drama drove a wedge between us - we were still family and we always will be. We will always have each other, and we will always be connected.

Maybe I wouldn't feel so strongly on the issue if we lived closer to my family and he had access to his cousins and aunts and uncles. But we don't, and the reality is that we probably never will, so it is what it is.

And this is where I get all dark and morbid, but obviously no one lives forever, and once Husband C and I are gone, I want Toddler C to have SOMEONE. Sure, I hope he gets married and has a family of his own, too, but a sibling relationship is different. They are people who knew you when - who can verify or challenge your memories, who can vouch for your character at all phases of your life, who share that common past. And that is why I hate that we just can't come to a decision on this issue. We've been unable to commit to a decision either way - there are valid reasons on each side. I'm more on the pro side, C is more on the con side - and that's ok. That's just how it is right now. Things could change. And that's what I really hate - the lack of certainty. I know that nothing is ever certain (save death and taxes, blah blah blah), but the not knowing is pretty much killing me. It's obviously not a decision that you can put on a definite timeline, either, although at some point human biology will step in and make it, for us. Sometimes, making the decision by NOT making the decision actually sounds preferable.

I don't expect any profound comments on this subject, I just needed to put it somewhere. I also don't need any more pros/cons to the argument - we've gone in enough circles on our own and we've covered pretty much all of them. I think this is somewhat of a contributor to my recent case of the anxiety blahs. Maybe writing it down will help.

The Obligatory Halloween Picture

2011-11-01T23:26:00.000-04:00

I hope to be back into the blogging swing of things, soon. It's been a little blah here lately, just lots of work and lots of play and no time to compose my thoughts. Such is life :)

Here's Charlie with his friends. We've spent the last three Halloweens with my BFF and her beautiful family. We're lucky that we've got such a fantastic tradition going! I hope it continues for years to come.

I think the Star Wars costumes came out pretty darn well, for the first (and second!) attempt.

Hell has Frozen Over

2011-10-28T06:43:00.002-04:00

This is what I wore to work yesterday:

(please disregard the messy bathroom)

It's the first time I've worn a skirt to work. Ever. I finished grad school in 2006.

Today? I'm wearing another skirt.

Invasion of the body snatchers, peeps!

Oh, Wondrous, Joyous Day

2011-10-26T06:19:00.003-04:00

Dunkin Donuts has finally gotten their act together and opened up a store near my office. Right across the street from my office, in fact!

No longer will I have to settle for the burnt beans at Starbucks. No longer will I have to endure the crowds of apple fan-boys and hipsters engaged in heated discussions about the latest Tori Amos CD. No longer will I fork over more than $1.50 for a simple cup of coffee.

Hallelujah!

Pure Awesome

2011-10-24T12:45:00.001-04:00

What's better than a new 13.1 PR?

Crossing the finish line (a second time!) with little sister Katie in tow.

We leave no one behind!!

SO proud of her. Miss her already.

It's like Shark Week...

2011-10-21T08:16:00.002-04:00

...but without the sharks. Otherwise known as, "Dad is a bad sharer."

Visit Unknown in Miami's Sunday in my City post for more photographic goodness!

Yes, Why?

2011-10-19T12:37:00.000-04:00

Ta da!

2011-10-17T12:33:00.003-04:00

Here it is, the finished Jedi robe.

It's Good to be the Mom

2011-10-13T12:48:00.000-04:00

Charlie (at 6:45 this morning as we headed out the door): Can I have a cookie?

Me: No, we don't eat cookies for breakfast

Charlie: OK

(5 minutes later I was chowing on my breakfast of gummy life savers.)

I hope he gets LOTS of Milk Duds on Halloween.

I'm such a hypocrite.

30 while 30 - The Sewing Project

2011-10-12T06:31:00.001-04:00

One of the tasks on my 30 by 30 list was to sew something. I purposely left it vague and open-ended, knowing my own history of crafty disasters. There was the time I tried to sew cow-print pajama pants, the time I tried to sew the holes on my jeans, the time I tried to hem my own pants, the time I tried to sew the hems on the curtains... I could go on. Stitch-witchery (the white tape that you use to iron-bond things together) is my best friend.

Growing up, my mom was the queen of craft. You name it, she could do it. She really shined on Halloween. While everyone else went to Bradlee's (like kmart, today) to get their cheap-o plastic Halloween costumes, my mom would go all out and create real works of art. She made costumes out of boxes and scraps and paint and glue and paper mache. I think the two best were my brother as an astronaut and my brother as the Empire State Building. I need to try to dig up some pictures. I wasn't as creative in the costume idea department - I went as a witch, a cat, a ballerina, a cheerleader. How boring. I think the worst one was the year I insisted as going as St. Lucia.

What, you don't know who St. Lucia is? Don't feel bad, neither did the rest of my 5th grade class. Or the people who answered their doors while we trick-or-treated.

Does this jog your memory?

I must have said "Swedish Patron Saint of Light" a million times. I should have just gone as a princess.

Anyway.

So now I have a kid of my own, so of course I'm continuing the tradition of handmade costumes, right? Sort of. Yes, they're handmade (with the exception of Brobee last year, because a friend offered to let Charlie borrow it), but my mom is still the one doing the making. Well, this year I decided that I was going to do it myself. Charlie wants to be a Jedi for Halloween. How hard could a brown robe be?

I searched the all-knowing Google for a pattern and found an Easy Jedi Robe, spent an hour at the fabric store trying to figure out the difference between cotton and broadcloth, measured, cut, and pinned, and bribed my neighbor with pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to bring over her sewing machine.

We were going for the Obi-Wan look.

I think we came pretty close. Maybe add a belt around the middle, and we're good to go.

30 while 30 Update

2011-10-11T06:40:00.003-04:00

Hey, look up there! See that new page? It's where I'm going to keep my 30 by 30 list. Ideally, I'll have lots of updates and check marks to talk about every month, and that's where they'll all end up.

I've already crossed a BIG one off the list - I started and finished my first sewing project EVER (the beautifully embroidered "Fuck You" panels I made in high school don't count).

Pictures and details about the finished product coming tomorrow!

So far, 30 has been great!

It's the End of the World as We Know It

2011-10-10T00:42:00.012-04:00

After this weekend, I think I can say that Charlie has officially given up on naps. Ugh, it pains me just to type that out! That glorious 90 minute period that I have come to expect between 1:00 and 2:30 every Saturday and Sunday is gone.

That means, on productive days, there will be no more afternoon workouts. On unproductive days (which seem to be the norm, lately), that means no more relaxing time on the couch with a book without pictures, no more naps of my own, no more catching up on junk TV on rainy afternoons.

And then I feel like a horrible parent for even thinking about mourning the loss of naptime. I should be overjoyed that we get to spend another hour together. Don't get me wrong, I love Charlie, and love spending time with him, but by the time lunch rolls around and we've played Star Wars action figures and cooked pretend grilled cheeses in the kitchen and built the same lego house over and over again and walked to the park and back... well, I'm tired. Shouldn't he be, too??

Perfect timing, too, because we had our 3-year well-check at the pedi's office last week. I blame her, because she asked the question. "Is he still napping?" Then I blame myself, because I smiled happily and said "Oh, yes! 90 minutes every day!" And then I'm back to blaming her for telling us that we should expect those to come to an end.

Now I'm WTF-ing her, too, because she also said that when the naps go away, we still need to encourage him to have at least an hour of quiet time. Quiet time? 3-year-old? Those two phrases don't really belong in the same sentence.

Of course, I took the question to Facebook. All moms commiserated with me on the loss of naptime. Some offered "Quiet Time" advice. It ranged from books and quiet toys to making them lie down anyway to (my personal favorite) Blackberry Whiskey (is that for him? or for me?).

Looks like we'll be hitting up Target this week for a quiet toy and an egg timer. I also found a super cute pattern for a Jedi Quiet Book online. I may have to get it, it can be my second crafty sewing project.

What, I didn't tell you about the first? That's coming soon :)

Apples

2011-10-07T06:45:00.000-04:00

I only own one Apple product (a shuffle) and don't plan on buying any others. I may not a big Apple Fangirl, but I do appreciate good innovation when I see it. I also appreciate well-thought-out philosophizing. I first heard the now-famous Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech in grad school. It was a stressful time in my life, and when I'm stressed out, my OCD symptoms get worse. One of my biggest trains of excessive thoughts centers around aging and death. These are two things that no one really likes to think about, OCD or not - the difference is that, for me, these things literally keep me up at night. Many nights.

The way that Mr. Jobs talks about aging and death in this address really spoke to me. It was the first time that I had heard this kind of spin on the topic, and as I pondered it and admired the logic behind it, I felt a sense of peace on the issue for the first time, ever. Of course, the obsessive nature of my thinking assured that the peace was somewhat short-lasting, but it was there, nonetheless. When my thinking starts to spiral into sleeplessness or feeling like I want to crawl out of my skin, this is what I go back to. This is what refocuses my mind and helps me feel more ok with the fact that our lives are finite.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

I can't thank Steve Jobs for the ipod, the iphone, or the imac, but I can thank him for speaking frankly on a topic that most people shy away from, and for the eloquence with which he shared his beliefs.

The rest of it is pretty amazing, too. Check it out.

Tantrums, Revisited

2011-10-06T06:17:00.001-04:00

Holy cow, last night we saw a tantrum like no other! We had to go to Target after dinner to get granola bars and kitty litter (odd combination, no?). Charlie was in rare form. It started out easy enough, he rode on the cart as we headed back to the pet supply aisle. It all began to roll downhill when we passed the toy aisle. For the past few months, there's been a car display where you can push a button and the cars race around the track. Well, last night it was GONE! There was no button to press! The world came to an abrupt end, complete with screaming and sobbing and flailing, like I've never seen before. He eventually calmed down, but decided that he was going to walk through the rest of the store. Ok, Charlie, but you have to hold my hand or hold the cart.

That lasted a whole 30 seconds, and then he was zooming down the aisle ahead of us. My pleas for him to slow down or stop went unnoticed, so I was left with no choice but to sprint after him while the crowd snickered.

The screaming got worse when I finally caught up. There was NO WAY he was getting back in the cart, so I did the logical thing - left the husband with the cart of litter and took Charlie out to the car. It was a totally new "walk of shame" as I carried a struggling ball of cranky toddler while rushing toward the exit. And then, the unthinkable happened. Just as we reached the door, he reached up and slapped me in the face. I've never seen that kind of behavior from him. I was so shocked that all I could do was laugh. Of course, that's when the screams of "I want to behave! I want to behave! I want to go back in!" started.

I thought the Disappearing Armpit Act was bad when he was 2, but 30 pounds of toddler pulling that trick is just unmanageable. I had to stop numerous times to adjust my carrying stance.

We finally made it out to the car, and then began the task of trying to get him into the carseat. He held his entire body completely rigid. Try shoving a 40 inch 2x4 into the backseat of a car and bending it into a carseat, and then you'll know my pain. I somehow managed to get him strapped in. I closed the door and breathed deeply, grateful for the silence (well, technically you could still hear him shrieking, but there was a car door to muffle the sound). I looked up to see a woman laughing at me as she put her groceries in the car. And what does she say when she looks up? She cracks, "I should call child services on you!"

WTF? Not funny, lady.

Please, don't let this be the start of a "phase." There isn't enough vodka in the world to get me through that.

Ummmm, oops.

2011-10-04T06:11:00.003-04:00

I think we may have figured out why Charlie may have recently developed a fear of lightning...

I don't know why we failed to connect the dots, earlier.

Mom fail, of epic proportions.

October Baseball is Back!

2011-09-29T12:43:00.000-04:00

So what if it will still be September when the playoffs start? This is the MOST wonderful time of the year!

The month of September started out with the AL playoff spots all but locked up by the Yankees, Tigers, Rangers, and Red Sox. The sux had a 9-game lead over the Devil Rays to open the month. And then, we watched the red sox embark on "a collapse of historic proportions." Oh, joy, oh, happy day. The red sox will be relegated to their couches for the rest of the baseball season.

Have I mentioned how much I love Mike & Mike?

Of course, it's not all going to be smooth sailing for my Yankees, as they're going to be facing off against the Tigers and Justin Verlander, who will probably end up being one of the best pitchers we'll see in the modern era. Let's go Yankees!

Making Shit Up

2011-09-28T12:27:00.000-04:00

One of my co-worker's favorite phrases is "What, you think I make this shit up?"

Sometimes I feel like that is the correct thing to do with all of the random questions Charlie asks. We were those highfalutin parents who vowed to never lie to our kid, to answer his questions honestly, and to fill his head with useful and accurate information.

Only three years in, and my resolve is slipping.

This morning in the car: "Mom, is the sun coming up? Where did it go at night?"

The rational part of my brain tries to explain that the Sun didn't actually go anywhere, the Earth did. While sitting at a red light, I try to describe the way that the Earth moves around the Sun, and try to demonstrate that the Earth also spins on an axis, and that when it looks like the Sun goes down, it's actually the Earth turning away from the sun.

We've done this dance before. I enthusiastically explain some kind of natural phenomenon, drawing pictures or gesturing to illustrate, and then I see that his eyes have totally glazed over.

This morning it was even worse - I got a "Mom, stop talking. I want to eat my granola bar."

I guess the correct answer to "Mom, is the sun coming up? Where did it go at night?" is really just "Away. It went away."

And one of my favorites:

Calvin: Why does the sky turn red as the sun sets?
Dad: That's all the oxygen in the atmosphere catching fire.
Calvin: Where does the sun go when it sets?
Dad: The sun sets in the west. In Arizona actually, near Flagstaff. That's why
the rocks there are so red.
Calvin: Don't the people get burned up?
Dad: No, the sun goes out as it sets. That's why it's dark at night.
Calvin: Doesn't the sun crush the whole state as it lands?
Dad: Ha ha, of course not. Hold a quarter up. See, the sun's just about
the same size.
Calvin: I thought I read that the sun was really big.
Dad: You can't believe everything you read, I'm afraid.

Charlie's Got The Girls-Only Blues

2011-09-26T05:32:00.000-04:00

I thought we'd have a few years before we started to go through this kind of thing, and I didn't think that watching it happen would make me so sad for Charlie.

The backstory: We live in a neighborhood with lots and lots and lots of kids. Great, right? Well, yes and no. Most of the kids are 2+ years older than Charlie. That doesn't seem like a lot, but when you're talking about the abilities of a 5-year-old compared to the abilities of a 3-year-old, it's night and day. There are a few who are only a year older, but they're all girls.

Charlie's neighborhood BFF is a 4-year-old girl (L), who lives across the street. They've been good buddies for a good year now, and Charlie and I are friends with the parents, so it works out quite nicely. Or worked out nicely, anyway. Lainey has reached the stage where the slightly older neighborhood girls make more appealing playmates than the little boy across the street. I totally get that, really, I do. And there's nothing wrong with it. But as the mom of said boy, it just makes me sad.

Yesterday afternoon we were cleaning up, and Charlie was standing at the window checking out the action on our street. L finally came outside to play, and Charlie was beside himself with excitement. "Mommommommommommommom, L is outside! Can we play? Can we play?" So we got shoes on and headed out to play. Charlie ran across the street to see her, but when he got there he was stopped by a 5-year-old girl (J), who told him that he wasn't allowed to play with them, because it was "girls-only time."

Poor Charlie was so disappointed. I mean, what do you even say to that? You can't force L to play with him if she doesn't want to. She's at the age where whatever the bigger girls say is gospel, so of course she joined in, "Yeah, Charlie, it's girls ONLY! You can't play with me right now."

I tried to get him to play with me, instead, but he wasn't really interested after that. It was absolutely heartbreaking. I wanted to stick my tongue out at J and tell her that Charlie didn't want to play with her, anyway, but then that would just make me the crazy lady.

Poor kid.

Race Recap Complete

2011-09-22T12:45:00.001-04:00

Check it out on the other blog. It's not nearly as long as the Pig post, I promise :)

Reeeeeeeeeeeeally looking forward to Friday!

Perspective

2011-09-21T06:44:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, when I got to Wright Patterson AFB at 5:00 in the morning, I logged in on Facebook to "check-in" and let my husband know that I had made it up there safely. Of course, I took a quick scroll through my news feed, and immediately noticed that there were what seemed like hundreds of posts asking for prayers for a fellow mom in my mom-group.

I've never really met A in person, but we've been active on the same local message boards for years and we've crossed paths at the occasional large-group get-together. A and her husband worked hard at getting pregnant. They finally did, last year, and were expecting a girl. Sadly, her water broke at 18 weeks and they lost their precious daughter Addyston. A few months later, they became pregnant again, this time with a boy. Again, problems cropped up around the 18 week mark - they were able to stop labor for a while, but she delivered their son, Michael, at 24 weeks, the very edge of viability.

Michael continued to grow in the NICU, and made good progress. There were constant positive updates from A about when they were able to hold him for the first time, when he was able to breathe normal air, when he ate well, when he gained weight like they wanted him to - it really looked as though he was going to beat the odds and one day go home to his parents.

Then, last week, he took a turn for the worse. They weren't exactly sure what the problem was and tested and tested until they found out. Unfortunately, the news wasn't good. Little Michael fought for eight long weeks, but the fight ended early Saturday morning.

It's times like this that really make me ponder the whole faith issue even more. Why do such horrible things happen to such good people? In all the years I've known A, she has been nothing but nice, welcoming, friendly, kind-hearted, yet she has had to bury two of her babies in the past year. What kind of higher power could possibly allow that to happen? The faithful are quick to jump to the whole "everything happens for a reason" and "it's just part of the grander plan," but I just don't get it. And I'm ok with that. I'm good with where I am.

But then, at the same time, part of me almost wishes that I *did* get it - that I was so secure in just *knowing* that everything happens for a reason, and that Michael is playing happily with his sister in some kind of utopian afterlife.

Please keep A and her family in your thoughts and prayers. She is one of the strongest women I know.

And to think, I was upset about missing the 4:00:00 marathon mark. Hug your families. We are so lucky to have them.

Air Force Marathon Update - I Didn't Make It.

2011-09-19T13:05:00.000-04:00

That's right, I didn't meet my goal time.

I missed it by 10 seconds.

You can read the short version about just how freaking close I came here. Full Race Recap isn't ready yet.

Registration for the 2012 Air Force Marathon opens January 1st! I'll certainly be back.

My Running Buddy is ahead of the curve and has already completed her Race Recap. Go show her some love!

Ready for Takeoff

2011-09-16T14:59:00.000-04:00

Wishful Thinking Thursday. And, Pumpkin Spice Lattes

2011-09-15T12:52:00.023-04:00

This morning I stepped out of the house and it was a cool 45 degrees out. Projected high of around 60. Perfect fall morning. Perfect day for a Pumpkin Spice Latte.

This is how my morning should have gone.

Wake up on time. Shower, dress, get Charlie ready, pull on hoodie for the first cool morning.

Get in the car and stop at Dunkin on the way to work for aforementioned Pumpkin Spice Latte, to celebrate the arrival of my favorite season.

Get one of their new Caramel Apple Donuts (I'm kind of obsessed - I had one on Saturday and have been thinking of it ever since) to eat for breakfast.

I had one on Saturday and I've been thinking about it ever since.

Instead, it went a little something like this:

5:40 - Alarm goes off

5:49 - Alarm goes off

5:58 - Alarm goes off, lay in bed for another minute calculating how many more minutes I could stay in bed before I would be late for work, decide that I have to get out of bed, regardless, because I have to pee, notice that the clock says 6:00 and have one of those "oh, shit!" moments when I realize I'm definitely going to be late.

6:25 - Try on three shirts, decide none of them look right, scramble to find something else

6:40 - Finally find acceptable clothes, run past Toddler Charlie taking his sweet-ass-time on the potty to hurriedly throw his lunch in his lunchbox.

6:45 (the drop-dead time for me to leave the house without being late) - Realize I forgot breakfast, scoop yogurt into a tupperware and throw granola into my purse.

6:47 - Realize I forgot Charlie's breakfast

6:50 - Finally in the car - if the lights are on my side, there's still time for Dunkin

6:52 - Stuck behind a schoolbus *damn!*

7:15 - Arrive at school, make a spectacular diving catch when Charlie catches his foot getting out of the car and nearly takes a header into the pavement.

7:20 - Stuck behind a schoolbus *damn!*

7:43 - Arrive at work

7:47 - Text from co-worker, morning meeting with client at diner - get back in car and drive to diner

7:54 - 9:15 - Drink too much crappy diner coffee, eat dry toast

Freaking school bus. Play along with Nota, if you need a do-over, too.

The 30th Birthday Extravaganza

2011-09-13T12:58:00.000-04:00

Better late than never....

So now I'm all old and stuff, right? That's what being 30 means? Well, my gray hairs can kiss my ass. My super fun birthday extravaganza included an acceptable time in the Cheetah Run, lunch out with the Charlies, Tina Fey's Bossypants, and a wine tasting at Valley Vineyards thanks to Alison, who really puts the "B" in BFF. S and R even came all the way down from the far northern reaches of the 'Nati for a surprise appearance. If this is what the 30s have in store, bring it on!

Us 30-something chicks really know how to party. Evidence follows.

This is all for ME!

The old (tipsy) lady

The (B)BFF

The Aftermath

Hot Ladies!

I'm incredibly lucky to have good friends to celebrate with. I hope they know just how much I appreciate their friendship. I'm going to try to make more of an effort to show my appreciation for all of the fabulous people in my life, starting with ~~lovely~~ lovingly-sarcastic handwritten cards. So, A, S, and R - make sure to check your mailboxes this week :)

Ben and Jerrys - Oh No, They Didn't!

2011-09-12T12:24:00.001-04:00

Oh yes they did. They went and made an ice cream flavor called Schweddy Balls.

What? You didn't see Alec Baldwin as Pete Schweddy on "The Delicious Dish?" Shame on you. I'm embedding it here, advertisement and all. It's totally worth it.

I just watched it again. Never gets old.

One of my favorite things to do while I'm in DC is visit one of the many Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shops. I almost always get the same thing - one scoop Chocolate Therapy, one scoop Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz. But then I saw the Schweddy Balls announcement, and I knew I had to get me some of that.

It was lovely, if a little unexciting. Not really the punch of flavor and chunks that I'm used to from the Ben & Jerry's kitchens. I think I could have done without the rum balls, I prefer malted milk balls, anyway. The balls themselves could have been a bit larger. They were too small to really get your mouth around.

Here it is, nestled safely beneath a scoop of Buzz Buzz Buzz.

Mmmmmm, balls. No one can resist a Schweddy Ball.

Back in the DC

2011-09-07T19:08:00.002-04:00

God, I love it here.

I'm in town for a Health GIS conference.

My Geek Crush, Todd Park, gave the keynote address today. I love him. How could you not love someone who gets so excited about DATA? Plus, he ended his speech with "...And may the Force always be with you." Swooooooooooon.

I had hoped to do some sightseeing this time around, since my trips mostly consist of the inside of my hotel room and the inside of our DC office building, but it's been pouring since I stepped off the plane. I did get a nice 6-mile run in. It was wet, but I always enjoy running in new places.

If you're just lost without me today, check out my recap of the Cheetah Run over on my running blog. I'll give you a sneak preview: It sucked.

30 Day Song Challenge - Week 17

2011-09-06T12:10:00.000-04:00

A Song that Helps you Remember

I just realized that I forgot to post the topic for this week, but that's ok. It's also a Tuesday, and not a Monday, but that's ok, too. There are more important things in life than adhering to arbitrary blog deadlines. Thousands of people learned that the hard way 10 years ago, this week - September 11, 2001. Ten years. In some ways it feels like it happened such a long time ago. So much has changed in our world since then - we've been "at war" for almost 10 years. We've been remembering those lost on that day and in battles overseas. Our confidence and sense of security has been shaken. We have to take our shoes off to board planes and we can't bring our own bottles of water through the security checkpoints. My Muslim friends endured ~~weeks~~ ~~months~~ years of threats and taunts (and a few arson attempts on the local mosques). So tolerant, our people.

In other ways, it's hard to believe that it was 10 whole years ago. I can still remember exactly where I was (had just moved into our new apartment) and what I was doing (sleeping, since we had moved all night) when our roommate came banging on the door shortly after the first plane hit. I had just turned 20, and had actually just flown back from a birthday visit to NYC a few nights earlier. I was naive about the global climate and had never heard of the Taliban, but Charlie, being an avid news reader, immediately started talking about Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. He knew before the second plane came. I remember watching the second hit, and then watching the towers come down. I had stood in front of them just days earlier. We did nothing but watch the news. I cried a lot. Everyone did.

We were lucky. We were spared the pain of losing family members and friends. Mostly, anyway - my uncle (who was more like a father to me, and my closest confidant) lost good friends, good people that he had known since childhood. In the months after the attack, he turned to hard drugs to help him "cope." We lost him for a few years, but not permanently. Like I said, we were lucky.

A few weeks after, there was a telethon called "America: A Tribute to Heroes." Bruce Springsteen sung a song called "My City of Ruins." It was originally written about Atlantic City, but took on a whole new meaning in the context of 9/11. It was cathartic.

"My City of Ruins" was featured on "The Rising," which was released right before the first anniversary of the attacks. The album felt like it was written to heal our hearts. It's an album that recognizes the sadness and grief and remembrance, but it also conveys a sense of peace and hope for the future. I would link to every song on it, if I could.

I don't know how many of you ever had the opportunity to see the New York skyline while the towers still stood. To this day, I just can't get used to the hole where they used to be. Every time I drive into the city on my regular visits, their absence is painfully apparent. I can't even imagine how the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children, and friends who have much larger holes in their hearts feel every day. May we never forget.

30 While 30

2011-09-03T09:39:00.001-04:00

Taking a cue from my many other blog friends who are turning 30, I'm putting together a list of 30 things that I want to accomplish while I'm 30. Some of them are hobby-related, some are reading-related, some are fitness-related, and some of them are just things that sound like fun. To give credit where credit is due, I originally got the idea from Jen at Beantown Baker, who had a 30 BY 30 list that she did, and she liked it so much that she did it again.

My list is pretty wordy, which is for my own benefit, so 10 months from now when I'm wondering WTF I wanted to read The Great Gatsby I can come back to this post and remember. Feel free to skip over the words :)

So here we go!

** Food-Related Goals **

Bake Something New Every Month - I love baking, and some of the stuff that I bake is pretty freaking tasty, if I do say so myself. I want to force myself to think outside of my Ina's Outrageous Brownies box and bake something new and interesting every month. I think Focaccia bread will be first on my list.

Bake a Successful Cheesecake - One of my baking endeavors will definitely involve cheesecake - I've only attempted it once and it was a total disaster. Think "hollow in the middle" and really, really dry. To make matters worse, it was the first thanksgiving that C and I were dating and I was invited to his parents' house. I made cheesecake because it's his dad's favorite. He was nice and choked it down. Awkward!

Try Something New Every Week - My Pre-K teacher, Mrs. McSoud, used to tell us to "try something new every day." Apparently, I had an adventurous palate when I was a kid. I've grown out of that, and I feel like there's a whole other world of food out there waiting for me, especially in the cheese department. This will be a veggie-cheese-fruit-nut-legume-recipe thing, only.

** Fitness-Related Goals **

Run a 5K in 24 minutes or less - If I plug my 10K time from the June Redlegs Race into the McMillan Pace Calculator, I see that I should be able to run a 5K in about 25 minutes. I'd like to improve on that and hit the 24:00 mark. Funny enough, I've never run a 5K, so the Cheetah Run tomorrow (my actual birthday) will be a good reference point for progress.

Do an Unassisted Pull-Up - We started our first round of P90X more than 18 months ago. Two full rounds plus another year running and cross-training with the P90X DVDs and I still can't do a single unassisted pull-up. I'm going to make it happen this year.

Yoga Once a Week - I used to be religious about yoga. It was a multiple-times-per-week activity. I've gotten away from it and I miss it.

** Hobby-Related Goals **

Sew Something - This can be anything, but will probably end up being a bag, because those are supposed to be easy. I've been saving three old t-shirts that would make perfect tote bags, and I keep telling myself that I'll make something with them, but we're about to mark 6 years in our house and 6 years they've been sitting in the closet.

Read the Classics - High School was a tumultuous time for me, and I may have faked my way through a decent portion of the required reading lists. I read a lot, just not what they wanted me to. Think Jane Eyre and Tale of Two Cities. I've never even read Pride & Prejudice or Gone With the Wind. I'm going to make a list of 12 and read one every month. Bonus, because Barnes and Nobles has a ton of free classic books available for free on the Nook.

Learn how to Dance (Anything!) - My supreme Dance Central talents aside, I can't dance. I'd like to take a dance lesson. Just one, just to say I've done it and tried it. I've always wanted to try swing dancing, but I just don't think I'm coordinated enough for all of that foot-moving.

Start to Re-Learn Conversational French - Once upon a time, I spoke fluent French. I even minored in French in college. Years later, and I remember enough to get by if I have to, but boy, do I miss just knowing exactly what words to use and how to use them.

Learn to Crochet - I've had a few failed go-rounds with learning to knit, and I've been assured that crocheting is much easier.

** Cleaning and Organizing Goals **

Commission a T-Shirt Quilt - Along the same lines as the tote bags, I've got a giant bag of Yankee shirts that are either too old or too large (XXLs) to wear in public. I want to have them made into a t-shirt quilt for Toddler Charlie. Again, 6 years they've been sitting there. Time to get off the pot.

Purge Some of the Crap in the Basement - Enough said.

** Personal Goals **

Call the Fashion Police - Last fall I did a makeup lesson with Nancy of FACEing and it was the BEST thing ever. I need to do the same thing, but with the clothes in my closet.

Wear a Skirt (or something other than my black pants/solid shirt collection) to Work Once a Week - This is going to be difficult because it's going to require shopping. I hate shopping, but I need to step up my wardrobe a little bit.

Wear Makeup More Often - This has more to do with getting up early enough than anything else.

Accessorize - Actually wear the jewelry and scarves and stuff that people have given me over the years.

Start Family Histories - I want to interview both of my grandmothers. One is very interesting because of her Italian heritage and her Brooklyn upbringing, and the other is interesting because she was a swinger. True story. She's also a super cool woman, aside from that ;)

Start Scanning Old Pictures - This is almost definitely a bigger project than I have time for in a year, but it would be nice to get started on digitizing the gigantic box of pictures in the office closet.

Make a Wedding Photo Album - It's only been 6 years.

Create Photobooks - I have thousands of non-wedding digital pictures that I'd like to organize into photobooks of years and vacations.

Take Steps Toward Finishing my PhD - Hopefully this will involve re-taking a class this winter and preparing for an exam next summer.

Have a Boudoir Photo Session - So that when I'm old, grey, and wrinkly, I can remember what it was like to be a smokin' hot babe ;)

** Other Stuff I Want to Do **

Cincinnati Brewery Tour

Take a Friday Afternoon Off Every Month for Lunch and Date with Husband C

Visit the Contemporary Arts Center

Visit and Hike in Red River Gorge

Go to a Concert (it's been a long time!)

Learn how to Climb Trees

Go to an Astronomy Night at the Cincinnati Observatory

Wishful Thinking Thursday with Nota!

2011-09-01T07:42:00.001-04:00

My buddy Nota has a new blog meme starting today, called Wishful Thinking Thursday. She even made a fancy shmancy button for it.

As she explains, Wishful Thinking Thursday is about crafting your perfect day in your head. How your morning would have gone and how your afternoon and evening will be - what would have made you happy. No limitations.

So here we go!

First of all, I check the ESPN Scoreguide on my phone every morning while I brush my teeth. I would have woken up to find that the Yankees had mounted a huge come-from-behind victory in the top of the 9th after I turned it off - beating the red sox and taking the lead in the AL East.

Actually, back up. First of all, I would have remembered that I had a morning meeting off-site and I would have set the alarm clock a little bit later so that I could have slept in (although, if I had done that, I wouldn't be able to write this post. things that make you go hmmmmmmmmm).

In that case, back up again - since "anything goes," I wish I hadn't had a morning meeting, at all. Heck, I wish I didn't even have to get up and go to work today.

So let's go back, shall we?

I would have slept in until 7. That's a good time for me, I wake up rested but not overtired. Then add in the thing about the Yankees miraculous comeback. Toddler Charlie would sleep in until 9, so that I could go out for a run. I would do my 15 mile long run and get it over with so I that I don't have to worry about drinking too much or eating the wrong things when we go out for our anniversary dinner tomorrow night. It would be a 100% enjoyable run, 60 degrees and dry, and leave me feeling confident about the Air Force Marathon coming up in 17 days.

Then I would come home and find that Husband and Toddler Charlie were both up and ready for the day, and had decided to go on adventure together, leaving me at home with an entire day to myself.

I would take a long shower, put on a tank top and my gray yoga pants, and plant my ass in a chair on the deck with Bossypants, by Tina Fey, which I've been carrying around since Saturday waiting for a chance to start.

I would take a break from reading around lunchtime, when I would have some walnut-grape chicken salad with a thick slice of cheddar cheese on a rosemary olive oil bagel from Bruegger's.

Then I would resume my deck-sitting and finish my book. The Charlies would return home after stopping for Adriatico's Pizza on the way home from their adventure. We would sit on the deck and eat pizza and drink Pumpkin Ale (or milk, for Toddler Charlie).

After dinner, we would ride bikes outside and make chalk drawings in the street.

Charlie would go to bed with only one trip to the potty, and then Husband Charlie and I would watch X-Files reruns on the couch while we drank our wine.

Mmmmm, David Duchovny....

That sounds pretty awesome.

A New Experience: Saving Lives, One Platelet at a Time

2011-08-30T22:14:00.001-04:00

I've been a regular blood donor since I was 17. Pretty hardcore about it, for a while there - I have multiple gallon pins, a few Hoxworth water bottles, blood donor patches, a donor hoodie, and a wardrobe of college blood drive t-shirts. Real hardcore.

Then I got pregnant, and stopped giving blood for obvious reasons. Then I was breastfeeding, and too paranoid to risk taking the hit to my supply. Then I just got out of the habit. I gave when it was convenient, at a few mobile blood drives here and there, but then I started running and became kind of selfish - I didn't want to get lightheaded and feel run-down. In my defense, I've been anemic for 15+ years and losing those red blood cells has always affected me more than most people. But that's not a good enough excuse. Even my Running Buddy puts me to shame with her donation frequency. It's not like I'm going to win any medals, or anything - what's some extra time on the clock?

And then, two weeks ago, I got an email from The Running Spot talking about the big citywide blood drive and specifically mentioning that donating platelets is a good option for athletes. I did my own side research, and it's true! Not only does it leave your red blood cells alone, but the matter that they take from you during a platelet donation regenerates within hours, rather than weeks. So that's all well and good, but donating platelets is SCARY! I'm not going to lie, I was TERRIFIED. Even after donating a million pints of blood, I still got anxious every time. The idea of donating platelets where they're not just taking stuff from one arm, but then also GIVING IT BACK in the other, just makes me shudder. Cue more research, where I learned that they can now do it using only one of your arms and that the needle is actually smaller than the one that they use for whole blood donations. So I decided to go for it.

Am I the only one who finds the graphic/slogan combination a little creepy looking?

In case you're not familiar with platelets and platelet donation, here's a quick summary:

During platelet donation, a small portion of blood (about 1/4 pint at a time), is drawn from your arm and passed through a sophisticated cell-separating machine. The machine collects the platelets and safely returns the remaining blood components, along with some saline, back to you.

A single platelet donation can provide enough platelets for a full therapeutic dose for a patient in need. In fact, some platelet donations yield enough platelets for two or three therapeutic doses. By contrast, it takes four to six whole blood donations to produce a single therapeutic dose.

Many patients who need platelets are undergoing chemotherapy or organ transplant and have weakened immune systems. A platelet dose from a single donor reduces the patient’s exposure to multiple donors and is therefore preferred by many physicians.

I was nervous, nervous, nervous driving down to the big city-wide blood drive. I was shaking like a leaf and side-eying the giant centrifuge machine as I climbed into the chair. Those things are gigantic! The technician staffing the apheresis area, George, was really nice and helpful. He showed me all of the equipment and explained how everything worked. I got a very detailed rundown of exactly what to expect, how long it would take, and what it would feel like. He set up the machine, hooked up the bag, and started the process, and then went the extra mile by entertaining me for the next 90 minutes while we waited for the collection to finish. He let me watch the monitors so that I could see what was going on and showed me how cool it looked when the platelets got sucked up into the plasma bag - it was really neat, all swirly like mixing oil and vinegar.

I'm not trying to say that it was all puppy dogs and rainbows. It took a while - 90 minutes is a long time - the first time is the longest because the machine isn't calibrated specifically to your counts, but even after that it's still a time commitment. The feeling of having the red cells and saline put back in was pretty bizarre - not painful, just a little uncomfortable until you got used to it. The worst part was probably the mouth tingles - the anti-coagulant they use in the return solution binds with calcium to do its job, so it makes your mouth and nose feel tingly after a while (thanks again to George for the technical explanations!). They had a giant supply of tums on hand to combat the ickiness, but it was still rather uncomfortable.

When all is said and done, it wasn't that bad, I was really glad I had decided to give it a try, and I'm definitely planning to go back and do it again. You can go every three weeks, although if they test your cells and find that you're an exact match for a patient in the database, they can ask if you'll do it more often. The women in the chair next to me (who happened to be the kids programming director for the Flying Pig!) went every day for a week when they found that she was a match for a leukemia patient.

So think about it. Even if platelets isn't up your alley, think about giving whole blood. See? I'm even smiling! I even got a Flying Pig duffel bag and a $10 gift card to the Running Spot. Can't beat that!

30 Day Song Challenge Week 16 - A Song from the Year you were Born

2011-08-29T12:46:00.004-04:00

While trying to figure out a good song for this week, I scrolled through the list of the top 100 hits of 1981. So many options. What to choose, what to choose? Lots of Blondie in the top 100 songs of 1981, but not my absolute favorite, which was Sunday Girl... "Celebration" by Kool & The Gang is an all-time classic, but I think my mom likes it more than I do, so that's out... Rod Stewart? He was my first concert way back in the day, but "Passion" isn't his best work... The Jersey Girl in me is partial to Springsteen, but he's already gotten a few mentions here, and I'm sure there will be more to come... I do love rocking out to "Hit me with Your Best Shot," but that can't be the best.

And then there it was, rolling in at number 65 - "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen, the all-time gods of rock.

My siblings and I LOVED this song. Never mind that it was old by the time we heard it. Auntie Ann had a Queen tape in her car and she pretty much always had it on. My aunts LOVED Queen - my mom even named her dog Freddie after Mr. Mercury himself. We would beg and beg and beg her to play "Another One Bites the Dust." Of course she always did, and never let on that she might be sick and tired of hearing the same song over and over. I still get a little rush of excitement when I hear the opening beat. So many great Queen songs, but this one will always have a special place in my heart.

Ah, good times. 30 years ago. Wow.

When were you born? Share, if you dare!

Friday Fragments

2011-08-26T06:34:00.002-04:00

FF is brought to you by Mrs4444!

Looks like my boy is single again!

Too bad I'm happily married. 6 years, today, actually!

Ahhh, 10 years ago.

Evidence that my husband is the bomb dot com: Only a really great husband would get the giant ladder out of the garage at midnight to put a new batter in the beeping smoke detector.

Seriously, why do those things only start to die at night?

I'm jumping on the bandwagon and starting my own "30 While 30" list - 30 things that I want to do or accomplish in the next year. Of course, I'll be posting the list - how else will I have any accountability?

I can not be trusted with a bag of croutons.

Did you know that I have a magic blog? True story. Minutes after I posted about my Twilight dilemma, an epub of book four mysteriously appeared in my email box, thanks to a reader I didn't know I have. I'm now officially done with Twilight (well, the books, anyway). I wonder if that trick would work with cookies....

Last night I went to my first-ever NFL game. Granted, it was only pre-season, and it was only the Bungles, but it was fun, anyway.

The field looks so much smaller in person.

I drove home late-ish at night, and as I got closer to my town I realized that I had a decision to make - take the slightly shorter route home that passes by the creepy Milford cemetery, or drive a little bit out of the way to bypass the possibility of a zombie sighting. Can you guess which way I went?

I've decided to bring back my weekly song challenge. It was fun for me, and I like talking about myself and telling stories, so I'm doing it, regardless of who else does or does not play along. Monday's theme will be "A Song from the Year you were Born," to kick off my last week in my 20s.

I bought a new kind of gum last week and just noticed that it's vitamin-fortified. Maybe that's why it tastes so weird.

Euchre Night tomorrow! I'm making dessert, as usual. I'm planning to make these Cookie Dough Brownies. Husband thinks they look like sweetness overkill, but Jen is an engineer and she wouldn't design a bad dessert. I'll let you know how they turn out!

See Bean Run

2011-08-24T12:42:00.001-04:00

Well, I've decided to go ahead and share the new blog. It's still not quite finished, I don't have the design the way I want it yet, and there's no picture, the page layout isn't the best, and the About Me page is lacking, but I'm tired of hiding it and waiting until I have time to get it right.

See Bean Run

I even have a new post up over there - a recap of the Little Miami Half Marathon that I ran on Sunday. New PR and a sub-2-hour race make me a happy Bean :)

Penmanship

2011-08-22T12:29:00.003-04:00

I was an obnoxious little overachiever when I was little. We're talking straight A's, gifted & talented, teacher's pet every year, perfect attendance, cry-when-you-miss-a-word-on-a-spelling-test bratty little overachiever. Then came third grade, and with third grade, came the addition of a new subject to our report cards - Penmanship. Finally, Miss Goody-Two Shoes had met her match. That December, I brought home my first ever C. I cried. When I found out that Penmanship grades weren't counted for the High Honor Roll program I breathed a sigh of relief - the fact that I couldn't write legibly to save my life wasn't going to prevent me from proudly slapping the "Proud Parent of a Franklin School Honor Student!" bumper sticker onto our car (the black chevy eurosport that we lovingly referred to as the POS). But damn, those C's haunted me all through my entire elementary school career. I was glad to see them gone in junior high.

My crappy penmanship is probably just another example of how uncoordinated I ~~was~~ am. When I say it was bad, I'm not exaggerating. I say I got C's, but that was really the lowest grade possible. They weren't allowed to give D's or F's for penmanship. I'm sure my writing equated to F-quality.

We started learning how to write in cursive in the second grade. Well, I did, anyway. My parents briefly enrolled us in Catholic School after I outgrew my beloved Montessori program. "Briefly" being a single year, so that I could make First Communion and get an official start to my Catholicism. Because we all know how well that worked out. After that, we transferred to our local public school, where they were a year behind in everything, including Penmanship. To this day, I curse my mother for not letting me just skip a grade. Social skills obviously weren't meant to be for me, either.

At first, I was really excited to learn how to write in cursive. I had always admired my mom's handwriting - the perfect, looping letters all connected together so nicely. I blamed my bad penmanship on the fact that it was just print letters - when I learned to write in cursive, my letters would be as pretty as my mom's.

So imagine my surprise when I put pen to paper and everything came out looking like this:

Terrible, indeed! It was definitely the worst in the class. To make matters worse, my 3rd grade BFF had perfect handwriting, wide and looping and swirling and neat and pretty. She even used to add a little smiley face after her name. My third grade teacher once sat me down and put my spelling test right next to her's so that we could compare the penmanship. She told me that my J's should look like Jackie's J's. I sat at my desk for an hour, trying to make my J's the same way. I didn't come anywhere close. I felt better because Jackie had missed some words on the spelling test and I hadn't (Yes, I was THAT GIRL).

Today, I've pretty much given up cursive writing altogether. My penmanship is much better, when I'm trying, but still pretty abysmal, generally speaking. And it's small.

There are rumblings that schools are going to be doing away with Penmanship. Indiana and Hawaii already have. Of course, people are staking out camps on both sides of the fence - there are arguments that penmanship - cursive writing, in particular, just isn't that important. Computers are the way of the future, and who cares if a person can write pretty letters, because no one's really going to see them, anyway. The other side argues that cursive writing and penmanship are expressions of creativity and individuality (and handwriting analysis would back those claims up), and schools should continue to teach and grade on it because it "helps train their mind, the hand, their attention to detail, it stimulates the brain...."

I can't decide. On one hand, I do think that hand writing is an important component of culture, and I get the idea that being able to write quickly is important because it helps your thoughts to develop. On the other, I will never forget being standing at the chalkboard writing cursive letters over and over and over again, because they were just never up to par. Did you have a love or a hate relationship with your pen and paper? Do you still write in cursive?

Five for Five

2011-08-19T12:45:00.000-04:00

Is it too much to ask to get a dry race one of these days? And 100% humidity? AYFKM?

I'll be running the Little Miami Half Marathon on Sunday. I was really hoping to PR and break the 2 hour mark, but I don't know how possible that is with these conditions. Until today, the forecast was bone dry and cooler. Look at mother nature, trying to rain on my parade. Trifling* bitch.

I'm making a few more changes to my running and fitness blog and will grace you all with the official URL next week, so you won't have to slog through posts about running if you prefer posts about beer and sitting on the couch. I will also be fully recovered from vacation and back to normal blogging, I promise. I just need a day to sleep in.

*I don't even know what "trifling" means, but I heard my teenage cousin say it the other day, so I'm guessing it's something nasty

Baby Got Back

2011-08-18T12:12:00.002-04:00

This probably belongs on my soon-to-be-public fitness blog, but I loved it so much that it's going here, too.

Shake that healthy butt!

I take my cues from Sir Mix-A-Lot - I'm definitely "little in the middle but I got much back" :)

Learnings

2011-08-16T12:51:00.001-04:00

I'm back in the O-H after four days visiting family back east. It was a lovely time, but now I'm tired and kicking myself for not taking another day off to recover. 10 hours in the car with a three-year-old is not a relaxing way to spend a day.

There are some really ugly clothes in the stores these days.

Reeeeeeeeeeeeally ugly.

(That's my sister, not me.)

Lisleman's Leftover Laughs

2011-08-10T12:44:00.000-04:00

My blogging buddy Lisleman has an every-so-often post that he's calling "Lisleman's Leftover Laughs." The idea is that you go back through your old posts (or write a new one, if you're so inclined) and give everyone something to laugh about. We can all use a little happiness, right?

I need them today, since I decided to squeeze in my 20 mile training run before work this morning so that I didn't have to worry about getting it in on vacation. In hindsight, that wasn't the best idea. My couch sounds really good right now.

My contribution to the party is my post about 25 Horribly Sexist Vintage Ads . I remember reading them like it was just yesterday, not sure whether to laugh or cry. I decided on laughing, and hoping that nothing like that ever tried to make a resurgence.

(although, I'm convinced that's why I only have nephews - 6 boys to zero girls. but that's a story for a different day)

I'm in Too Deep

2011-08-09T06:19:00.018-04:00

Last Thursday, I found the draft of "Midnight Sun" online, which is Twilight Book 1 all over again, but from Edward's perspective. I read it in every spare second I could find, which includes the two minutes while I brush my teeth and the five minutes I spend "in the bathroom" after I get home from work (what, like you've never gone in there and locked the door behind you just for a few minutes of peace and quiet?). It was unfinished and unedited, and she can't seem to get through a single paragraph without using the word "chagrin," but I was still unable to put it down.

Saturday morning, I downloaded Twilight Book 3 from the e-library in preparation for Thursday's road trip. I kept telling myself that I absolutely would NOT read it until we got in the car. It didn't last past Sunday night.

Now I'm stressing out because the waiting list for the e-book of Twilight Book 4 is long, and I won't have it in time for the road trip. I've requested an actual paper copy from the county library (how quaint!), and the status just tells me that it's "In Transit." I've been obsessively refreshing the page, waiting to see the "Available!" message pop up, but nothing, so far. I only have another 30 hours before it will be too late!

What has happened to meeeeeeeeeeee??!!?!?!?!

Recipe: Chocolate Cupcakes with Ganache Frosting

2011-08-08T12:15:00.001-04:00

I love chocolate. I love cupcakes. I LOVE chocolate cupcakes. Naturally, Charlie does, too, so that's what I decided to make him for his birthday. Not just any cupcakes, though - these were going to be Star Wars cupcakes, thanks to the super cool cupcake stencils that recently showed up on the shelf at Williams-Sonoma.

I needed a relatively simple recipe, since I had to make them on a Tuesday night and decorate them on a Wednesday night so that Charlie could bring them to school on Thursday. I consulted my favorite baking blog, Beantown Baker, and found these Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes. And then I read the recipe wrong, and realized that I didn't have all of the ingredients, after all, so I went back to the basics, and used this Perfectly Chocolate Cake recipe from Hershey. I still used Beantown's Ganache recipe (at the bottom of the cupcake link), because it was exactly what I was looking for - spreadable, but hard-drying. Perfect for cupcake stencils. And perfect for having lots of tasty chocolate ganache left over. That's what spoons are for!

I made the cupcakes one night, frosted them the next, and let them sit in the fridge until the ganache had set and hardened. The stencils were super easy - put one on top of the cupcake and then dust powdered sugar on top. I was pretty happy with the final product. Charlie was, too :)

Unfortunately, the ganache started to melt again and the sugar became runny once they had been outside, but that was my fault because it was 90 degrees out and I should have kept them in a cooler. Lesson learned!

I Have a THREE Year Old

2011-08-07T06:08:00.001-04:00

Charlie turned 3 on Saturday. THREE! Can you believe it? I really can't. Three years since I spent 12 hours howling in pain, puking in the elevator, and screaming for the epidural. I didn't make a very good pregnant lady.

I know that very little growing happened between bedtime August 7th and morning on August 8th, but all that I can think when I look at him now is "Little boy!"

I think he had a pretty great birthday. It started out with a free donut from the ladies at Dunkin, who fawned all over him and told him that they could remember back before he was even born.

We did some riding on his new bike, a birthday present from Grandpa Buddy...

...We sang with the birthday turtle...

... We did some swimming with his friends for a mini birthday party...

...And ate some super cool Star Wars cupcakes...

... All that, and it's not even over yet! We're heading off to Jersey later this week for a triple birthday extravaganza, including celebrations for Charlie's big 3, my bigger 3-0, and the BIG 5-0 for my Aunt Jeanne. Can't freaking wait!

A Series of Confessions, Part 2 - Where I Confess About my Morning Routine

2011-08-05T12:56:00.003-04:00

So, remember how I went on that great vacation to Colorado? Wow, it feels like a long time ago. It was over a month ago. 38 days since we flew back to the O H, to be exact.

Well, that's about how long it's been since I've blow-dried my hair. Or was until Monday, that is. 33 days of hastily tied ponytails at ~~6:40~~ ~~6:45~~ 6:50 in the morning when I'm rushing out the door. Make it the full 38 days since I've managed to put makeup on, because today is the first day since vacation that I've forced myself to do it.

My routine has disappeared. My long-stuck-to, rigid but relaxing routine of waking up at 5:20, taking a leisurely shower, reading the news, listening to Mike & Mike while I get ready, packing the lunches put together the night before, and then getting Charlie ready for the day, has disappeared. In it's place, I'm too ~~tired~~ unmotivated to make lunches at 9:30 at night after we're done exercising. I prefer to sit on the couch with a beer and read ~~very important academic works~~ ~~classic literature~~ ~~running magazines~~ Twilight. I get that nasty adrenaline surge after a good workout, so we sit up until 10:30/11:00 and then start getting ready for bed. I'm actually asleep somewhere around midnight, and then my alarm goes off at 5:10, when I start 54 minutes of snooze-button mashing. I finally force myself out of bed at 6:04 (why is the snooze 9 minutes? that's an awfully odd length of time), then rush in and out of the shower, throw on the closest outfit I can find, and go downstairs to throw some food in a bag while Husband Charlie gets Toddler Charlie ready for school.

Every morning, I leave my house just a little bit later.

I just can't figure out what happened. Where did my motivation go? I hope to find it again, sometime.

A New Blog

2011-08-04T06:41:00.001-04:00

Just to let all three of my regular readers know, I've decided that I'm going to create a new blog to hold all of my fitness/P90X/food/running related posts. I feel like this blog isn't really the forum where I want to talk about different running shorts and pro/con different styles of shoes or different exercise programs. If it's something that's related to my life on a more global level, I'll certainly post it here, too.

This will still be my primary blog, but I've been feeling like the "me-ness" is getting lost in all of the other stuff I want to post somewhere. Hence the spin-off blog experiment. We'll see how it goes.

Link to follow, for my fitness-oriented peeps.

Gonna Party Like, It's My Birthday

2011-08-03T06:29:00.000-04:00

But it's not. Not yet, anyway. I've still got a month left in my 20s. Exactly ONE month. Meanwhile, Husband Charlie has been hounding me for birthday present ideas, and I can't think of a single, solitary thing. I guess that's part of the boringness of being an adult - I have a budget, and I have income, so if there's something I want, I check my budget and then either buy it or decide that I don't really need it. Most of the time I decide that I don't really need it, because I hate spending money.

I don't need books (ebooks or paper), I've got a library for that.

I don't want clothes, that's so boring.

I don't want jewelry, I rarely wear the stuff I have.

I don't need anything new and exciting for my camera.

So far all I've got is two t-shirts:

but I don't think Charlie will go for that.

He also thinks running shorts are too boring for a birthday present.

Maybe this - it's been a while since I've gotten a new Yankees shirt.

I briefly considered doing a boudoir photo shoot, but I've been feeling kind of fluffy lately.

I even tried the whole "I don't need a present, let's just go somewhere good for dinner," but that's not working, either, because Charlie thinks 30 is a big deal. Easy for him to say, he's only going to be 29.

There's a pretty good story behind that one.

A Series of Confessions, Part 1 - Where I Confess that I'm Reading Twilight

2011-08-02T06:40:00.000-04:00

"Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend."
— Stephen King

I came across this quote in all of the Harry Potter mania that went on last month. Having never read Twilight, and, really, having never had any desire to read Twilight, I found it incredibly funny.

I was all

But then we went to see Harry Potter, and I saw the preview for the new Twilight movie (Breaking Dawn? Eclipse? one of those). The teenage girls in the crowd started squealing with delight. What was it about these stories that these girls found so compelling? I decided that it was time to find out.

I borrowed the first book from the library's eBook collection. I told no one. Not even Charlie - he asked me what I was reading, and I just blushed furiously and changed the subject. I texted my BFF to confess my sin while I brushed my teeth before bed. Thankfully, she didn't judge me harshly, if only because she's read them, too. I ended up staying up all night to finish it, cramped up in the corner of my room on the floor - I just couldn't put it down. I can't really figure out why, either - it's not even a good book! It's not well-written, incredibly verbose, and there is very little actual plot. The characters are completely one-dimensional.

It's absolutely not something I would want my teenage daughter reading - it's unbelievable how co-dependent and unhealthy the Bella/Edward relationship is. Kind of reminds me of how I felt when I was a stupid teenager and got dumped by my first real boyfriend. Except I didn't tailspin into a ridiculous year-long depression where I didn't talk to anyone until he came back. And, oh yeah, he didn't come back. Totally unrealistic, and just setting young girls up for serious disappointment. And what kind of role model is Bella? What kind of heroine? She's weak, she's needy, and she's completely dependent on Edward for life satisfaction. Come on, lady! Pick yourself off and dust yourself off! Suck it up! Losing your boyfriend at 17 is NOT the end of the world!

But maybe that's why the 20- and 30-something girls like it so much? Maybe it fills a void for them? Allows them to hold out hope that all ordinary Bellas out there will one day have their Edwards?

And I do totally get the whole idea of reading for enjoyment, and reading just for the sake of reading, but there is so little actual substance to these books, and so many moments of eye-rolling and gagging (every time Edward picks up Bella to carry her somewhere, a little piece of me dies - she's not a puppy, for crying out loud)...

...but I can't stop reading. I just downloaded book 3 last night, and I'm sure the movies are somewhere in my future.... Please don't judge me too harshly.

Especially since I'm also going to say that Robert Pattison is just not very attractive as Edward. I don't get what all the fuss is about.

The Fragments

2011-07-29T06:49:00.002-04:00

FF is brought to you by Mrs4444!

Overheard in the office (while Lady 1 is taking a picture of Lady 2): "Ok, smile! Now, don't look like a dinosaur, stand up straight."

WTF?

Do you like "People of Wal-Mart?" Then you'll love Transit Peeps. Don't get me wrong, I love public transportation. I'd live in DC for the Metro, alone. Even with this gigantor escalator.

Charlie is BIG into Star Wars. He's also big into asking random questions about characters that don't really exist - like "What did Chewbacca have for breakfast?" and "Where's Obi Onobi's house?" I usually just make stuff up, but I was too busy dying laughing at the irony of his latest question on the way home from school - "Where's Luke Skywalker's daddy?" Poor kid has a lot to learn.

Speaking of Star Wars, I came across the Depressed Darth blog a few weeks ago. Depressed Darth shares his thoughts on "life, love and how to get rich quick. Plus general dark side news from across the galaxy…" Also, his thoughts on Obi-Wan marketing the smartphone that isn't a Droid.

In keeping with the Star Wars theme, I'll share this awesome cover from February's New York Post.

Who else is BEYOND excited that football is back?! Yes, I'm a baseball fan first and foremost, but I also love football. New York Jets football! Go Green!

NFL pre-season just wouldn't be NFL pre-season without Brett Effing Favrerererere taking up more space in the headlines (space? get it? theme week? hahaha). Come ON! You're seriously thinking about coming back? Just sit down and shut up.

NFL pre-season means that the hot, hot days of summer (seriously, we're on 14+ days straight in the 90s) are coming to an end. We've stepped up our time at the pool so that we can suck every last ounce of enjoyment out of it. Did you have a pool when you were little? We were lucky, because both sets of grandparents did. That didn't stop us from begging for a slip-and-slide with a splash pool at the end. It turned out to be a big disappointment. I'm Remembering has put together a compilation of "Expectations vs. Reality" in honor of fancy kiddie pools and disappointed children everywhere.

I have a haircut appointment at lunch today, a few months overdue. I haven't actually blow-dried my hair in over a month, it's just too long and overgrown. I'm also in desperate need of highlights, but I can't find three hours in any day to go and sit at a salon. Woe is me.

50 days until Air Force Marathon! Can't wait to have one of these shiny hunks of metal around my neck.

Hey, I Put Some New Shoes On, and Suddenly Everything is Right

2011-07-28T12:48:00.001-04:00

Goodbye, clunky old ProGrids...

Helllllloooooooo Kinvaras!

I have been ~~wanting~~ lusting over these (much lighter) shoes for a long, long time. I've been going to the running store pretty much weekly to buy gels for my long runs, and I always stop over at the shoe wall to visit them, imagining the day when they would be able to come home with me to be my New Running Shoes. I'm at that point where there are only seven weeks standing between me and the Air Force Marathon - running low on time to get enough miles in so that I can wear these shoes for the race. Yesterday, they were finally mine. Tonight, I will run in them. And I'm so excited about running in them, that I just might run outside rather than on the treadmill, even though it will still be in the 90s at 8:00 this evening. I just. can't. wait.

As a bonus, the guy at the store taught me the "correct" way to tie my shoes so that they won't come untied while I run. Want me to share?

Also, big props to my running buddy, who survived her first Olympic-distance triathlon! Way to go! You can read about it on her blog. She almost had me convinced to do a mini tri with her next weekend, but I decided that shoes were more important :)

Fulfilling My Own Prophecy

2011-07-26T06:39:00.001-04:00

So the other day, I talked about how I must be getting old because the TV shows from my childhood were about to debut on the new version of "Nick at Nite." I also jokingly referenced the fact that Nirvana is now considered to be "classic rock."

Imagine my surprise when I found out that Nirvana isn't only a "classic," it's Vintage. Did you know that?

No?

It must be true, because Target says so.

ZOMG!!1!!!!1! 1993. Nineteen ninety effing THREE! I can just imagine the teenagers back-to-school-shopping with their moms, ooohing and aaahing over the "vintageness" of this faded old Nirvana t-shirt. I mean, they weren't even BORN yet! It would be way rad if they wore it to school, they would be totally tubularly cool. Majorly awesome. Cowabunga! What, am I dating myself?

Not only is it vintage, but it's vintageness is on par with The Beatles, who were next to them on the "Vintage Varsity" shelf.

Is this how my own mother felt when I wanted to wear tye-dye Grateful Dead shirts and peace sign necklaces?

To add insult to injury, check out this part of the definition:

vin·tage (vntj)

adj.
1. Of or relating to a vintage.
2. Characterized by excellence, maturity, and enduring appeal; classic.
3. Old or outmoded.

(of course, my cynical eyes skim right over the second usage. you bet I'm excellent, mature, and enduringly appealing.)

30 Day Song Challenge - Week 15

2011-07-25T06:09:00.000-04:00

Welcome to Week Fifteen of the 30 Day Song Challenge! This week's topic is "A Song that Reminds you of Summer."

Is there anything you remember from your childhood or adolescence or early adult years that no one else remembers? Some candy, or some game, or some TV show that you can clearly picture in your mind, but no one else seems to know what you're talking about? I have one - the Out of Order Weekly Countdown with Jed the Fish. When I was a teenager, I wasn't so much into the Top 40 music - Casey Kasem was not my friend. I liked the grungy alternative stuff. Thankfully, they had a dedicated countdown every weekend on the single alternative rock radio station. It was called "Out of Order," and it was hosted by Jed the Fish. The gimmick was that instead of counting down from 20 to 1, they counted down from 20 to 2 in a random order and then saved the number one for last. No one remembers it, but thanks to Google, I can prove it existed. And wow, apparently it's still on the radio.

Anyway. I used to listen religiously when I was 14 and 15, before they replaced the one decent Cincinnati radio station with more country music. The number one song on Out of Order for all of 1996 also happened to be our summer anthem (I know I've mentioned the awesomeness of that summer before).

The Butthole Surfers, Pepper

Just add it to the list of songs that remind me of being young and stupid.

The Fragments

2011-07-22T06:31:00.000-04:00

Making a return to Friday Fragments just for my friend Katie, who apparently is absolutely lost without them. It's nice to know I have readers. FF is brought to you by Mrs4444!

I'd bitch about the heat, but I bet everyone already knows that it's hot out. The good thing about blogging is that your past always comes back to haunt you. We humans are fickle creatures. Where do I need to go to get a nice, consistent 70 degree climate?

As the old cliche goes, "it's not the heat, it's the humidity!" True 'dat. I got the treadmill so that I could keep running all summer. Doesn't help so much when your basement feels like a sauna.

You know it's going to be a good day when you hear Biz Markie AND Paula Abdul on the way to work.

Biz Markie live at the Apollo? Wow, he looks so young! Did you know there was an official video for Just A Friend? Me, neither. Well, I've learned something. Guess this has already been a productive day.

I mentioned this yesterday, but my sister has a blog. A funny, clever, sarcastic blog. You'll love it, I promise.

I'm trying to plan my big 30th Birthday Extravaganza. I really want to have a big 90s-themed roller-skating Girls' Night Out, but the only place that offers such a thing runs them on Saturday nights starting at 10:30. I'm afraid that's too late and no one will come :(

Did you ever wonder what would happen if you went to Cold Stone Creamery (holy cow, that sounds amazing right now) and ordered every possible mix-in? No? Me neither. But now I know.

Speaking of Random Stuff on the Web, Lehigh University did a study and calculated exactly how much it would cost to send a kid to Hogwarts School or Witchcraft and Wizardry. WAY more than what I paid for my entire undergraduate education. It would be nice to have a pretty robe, though....

What? Two random website links weren't enough? You want a third? I can oblige that request. Two churches located across the street from each other. Doesn't matter if it's real or not, still funny.

Have you Urban Dictionaried yourself? I guess it's the new (and more amusing) version of Googling yourself.

Here's mine:

Jene

A french name originally derived from the Ancient Greek. The feminine form of John. People with this name are amazingly calm and sensitive to other people's needs. Being friends with them is a great investment of time. Once friends with a Jene, You will always be friends!

Friend: "Jene, You're my best friend in the whole world. Man you're so amazing!"

Jene: "Thanks friend. You're pretty amazing yourself!"

What are you?

I am NOT my Sister's Keeper

2011-07-21T13:35:00.001-04:00

And after seeing the kinds of guys turning up in her online dating inbox, I'm really thankful for that :)

What kind of guys? Well, you can see for yourself, because little sister has decided to set up a blog dedicated to them.

I present to you... Stupider Cupid.

My sister is clever. Very clever. And funny. And she would be absolutely horrified that I just started two sentences with the word "and."

I've already got a few favorites:

07.01.2011

hey u seem pretty nice im keith whats yours :)

Sorry, keith whats yours, I don't date boys who use punctuation strictly for emoticons and nothing more.

06.13.2011
How did the weather treat you today?

Sunny with a 95% chance of stupid questions.

06.03.2011
I doubt very much that your only superficial requirement is that a guy not wear skinny jeans, but I intentionally buy jeans several sizes too big just to avoid anybody possibly making that mistake about me.

Just throwing that out there.

He probably also buys condoms that are several sizes too big, just to avoid anybody possibly making the mistake that his penis is tiny. Do you see how your logic is flawed? Just throwing that out there.

Aww, little sister is all grown up.

So go and visit her blog, and laugh at the expense of cheesy pick-up artists everywhere.

Compassion - I'm Lacking It

2011-07-20T07:16:00.001-04:00

Husband Charlie caught the summer cold (or whatever) that I had last week. He was up all night coughing and sniffling and nose blowing and tossing and turning. Of course I felt bad for him, because I was pretty miserable when I was going through it, but around midnight I was starting to get irritated with my sleepytime being constantly interrupted and by 3AM I was downright stabby. He went to the bathroom to get more tissues, and I picked up my pillow and retreated to the Room of Requirement, hoping to get a solid 2 hours in before the alarm went off.

A few minutes after my head hit the pillow, I started hearing scratching noises and meowing coming from downstairs. Darwin had managed to get himself locked in the laundry room. Rather than having to listen to the whining, I took pity on him and let him out. He repaid me by attacking and biting my feet and knocking things off the table and windowsill for the next hour.

Sigh. Cats.

I wish that we had designated naptimes throughout the day.

You Know You're Getting Old When...

2011-07-19T22:44:00.002-04:00

Back in the day, Nickelodeon reserved the late at night time slots for "Nick at Nite." Do you remember that? It was when they replayed all of the TV shows that had their heydays when your mom was a little girl, before TVs had color. We used to have sleepovers at my grandma's house with our two aunts, and we would cuddle up on the couch under the blankets long past our bedtimes and try really hard to stay awake through Bewitched so that we could get to the really good stuff - I Love Lucy (the chocolate factory episode was my all-time favorite). We learned the words to the Green Acres theme song and sang it constantly, making sure to crack our voices on "Faaaa-arm livin' is the life for me!" We danced to the opening sequences of I Dream of Jeannie and The Monkees.

I mean, really. How could you not?

And it was all so funny, because look at the funny clothes they're wearing! And look at how grainy the picture is! Ha ha ha, life was so weird back then!

But today. Oh, today. Well, well, well. How the turntables... (bonus points for guessing the reference).

The 90s Are All That.

Classic Nick? Are you kidding me? Just in time for my 30th birthday. I'm looking forward to catching old episodes of Clarissa and Doug and Pete and Pete, but I'm also feeling fiercely protective over my old favorites. All the kids will be making fun of old TV shows. But now they're MY old TV shows! I don't want some teeny bopper giggling over Clarissa's outdated fashion sense. I loved her. I wanted to dress like her. I wanted those super freaking cool clothes that she always wore, and a funky headband and choker necklaces. I mean, really. LOOK AT THOSE RIPPED JEANS THAT SAM HAS ON! Those were so cool. How much cooler could one person be?? (I also wanted a best friend who was a boy and lived next door and climbed a ladder up to my window every day to visit like Sam did, but there was a shortage of boys next door. Probably a shortage of ladders, too. And WHY did Clarissa and Sam never hook up? It just always seemed like the next logical step.)

And the high tops. Oh, the high tops!

Clarissa wore Chucks. She was the bomb dot com. (not that we would have even known what a "dot com" meant in the early 90s)

I'm hoping for a resurrection of Are You Afraid of the Dark. I always wanted to start my own club. I mean, really, who among us didn't dream of throwing magic dust over a campfire and uttering those so important opening words - "Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society..."

Also missing? Ren and Stimpy. It's just not the same without them.

What's next? Nirvana on the classic rock station? Oh, wait....

30 Day Song Challenge - Week 14

2011-07-18T12:42:00.001-04:00

Welcome to Week Fourteen of the 30 Day Song Challenge! This week's topic is "A Song that Reminds you of Somewhere."

"New York, New York," sung by the amazing Frank Sinatra, will always remind me of Yankee Stadium - both the old cathedral, and the new, grand mansion. They play New York, New York as soon as the last out is recorded. The funny thing is, they play the old Sinatra version following a Yankee win, and the Liza Minnelli version following a loss. Thankfully, I've been lucky enough to almost always hear Sinatra's crooning as I make my way out of the hallowed grounds.

So here's Old Blue Eyes, himself. To go along with the song, we have a delightful montage of Yankee-related images. If I close my eyes, I can almost smell the hot dogs and taste the cool beer....

About 42 seconds in, you'll see Freddy Sez. He's been a stadium icon for as long as I can remember, with a new "Freddy Sez" sign every game. Sadly, he died during last year's postseason run. Poor Charlie will never get the chance to bang on the pan.

1:07 shows you the most iconic photograph of Manager Joe Torre - being carried off the field after a World Series victory, good old Bernie Williams immediately to the left. A classic Jeter fist pump at 1:36, and one of my favorite baseball memories, ever, at 1:43 - the Yankees and the Diamondbacks lining up to pay respect to the flag just weeks after 9/11. The Ground Zero Flag, itself, at 1:57. And the midnight magic - what baseball fan doesn't remember the late-inning heroics by the boys in Blue that year? To come from behind and win all three home games in New York, in super dramatic fashion, at a time when the city (and America, at large) needed just such a release. Yes, baseball is just a game, but in so many ways it's also the glue that holds people together - something to bond over, something to celebrate about, and something to distract you from the more painful parts of life. This was never more true than post 9/11. Baseball, Yankee Baseball, was exactly what the city needed to start recovering.

Jeter at the bat!

With my little cousin Danny, at his first Yankee game back in 2005. Bernie hit a Grand Slam!

The new Digs

Next week's topic will be another vague one - "A Song that Reminds you of Summer."

Harry Potter!

2011-07-15T06:06:00.004-04:00

I was going to return to my Friday Fragments roots to cheer up my friend Katie whose 2 year old had to get stitches yesterday, but today is Harry Potter Day! Next week, Katie, I promise.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, was released at midnight. I'm old and boring, so I didn't go to the opening show, but we have an afternoon date planned and we'll be seeing it at 1:00! Only a few more hours to go! I'm a little sad about it, because I so loved the book series and now it's all going to come to an end.

Even sadder, because BFF is out of town this weekend, so no fun group date this time :(

I must have a lot of geeky friends, because everyone I know is getting all fired up about it. Jen over at Beantown Baker made these awesome-looking cupcakes.

She also posted a recipe for Butterbeer that sounds absolutely amazing. If we weren't in the midst of a heat wave I'd try it right now, but the idea of drinking something hot (even if it does have alcohol) is just totally unappealing. I think it's going to be a staple in our house this fall, though! Lucky Jen also went to the midnight premiere. I'm a jealous girl!

My super crafty friend Kristin also went to the midnight show, complete with her own wand.

According to Facebook, it's Elder with a core of dragon heartstring. You can learn how to make your own Harry Potter wand here! I wish I didn't have to spend my morning working.

Instead, I wish I could spend it looking at cool Harry Potter stuff, like these Golden Snitch earrings.

And reading funny Harry Potter parodies, like this.

If you're a Potter fan, are you going to see Harry Potter today? Are you coming to my blog still half asleep because you stayed up all night going to the premiere? CAN'T WAIT!

Selling

2011-07-13T13:34:00.000-04:00

As of an hour ago, our house is on the market.

Where are we going?

Not sure.

Kicking around a few possibilities.

Maybe just down the road a bit, closer to the city lifestyle that I crave.

Maybe across the country.

Maybe to an apartment closer to the city, while we try to decide what our next direction will be.

Probably not to the East Coast, which is what my heart truly pines for.

For some strange reason, houses in our neighborhood have been selling quickly at fair prices, so we decided to go ahead and try our luck.

It all happened a lot faster than I thought it would. We flew back from Colorado sure that we needed to get out of our not-the-right-fit neighborhood.

Not that this was a rash, spur-of-the-moment decision - we've been planning towards this for over a year now. Actually, oddly enough, it was exactly a year ago today that we met with our old realtor and decided that the timing wasn't quite right.

Just that now that we've decided that it's really time to jump in, I'm a little overwhelmed. A little stressed out. A little anxious, but hey, I get tied up in knots over deciding which shampoo to buy.

I'm also feeling pretty guilty because we haven't told anyone about our plans. Haven't told my mom, who I will have to call tonight because she's coming over for a visit tomorrow and the giant "For Sale" sign will surely tip her off.

I feel most guilty that I didn't tell my BFF, because I tell her everything else. In my own defense, it all just happened so fast. We set up a meeting with the new realtor this week, and I thought we would just be talking about the process and making some decisions. I didn't realize that we'd actually be LISTING the house today. I just hope she gets my gchats before she reads this blog - sorry, BFF :p